Important Modern and Vintage Timepieces

Geneva, Mar 11, 2012

LOT 476

BREGUET ? A MADAME LA MARÉCHALE DE LAURISTON Breguet, ?Petite Simple Plate Concentrique Nouveau Calibre?, No. 115, sold to Madame la Maréchale de Lauriston on 30 April 1840 for 1300 Francs. Fine and very rare, 18K gold lady?s pendant watch with experimental balance.

CHF 5,000 - 7,000

USD 5,500 - 7,600 / EUR 4,000 - 5,800

C. Three-body, "forme quatre baguettes", no. 536 by Leopold Secheret, engine-turned back, with winding and setting apertures, engine-turned band with a provision for regulation at 10 o'clock, wound and set from the back with a male key. D. Matte silver, engraved with a neo-Gothic rosette in the centre, champlevé radial Roman numerals, outer minute dot divisions. Gold Breguet hands. M. 26.3 mm, early brass bar calibre, 6 jewels, cylinder escapement, steel escape wheel, unusual three-arm uncut superimposed bimetallic platinum and blued steel balance, blued-steel balance spring, pare-chute shock protection on the top pivot. Signed and numbered on the dial, numbered inside the back cover and stamped with casemaker's mark and French 18 ct. gold mark. Diam. 29.5 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3**

Good

Repair required, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-6-01

Good

Slightly oxidized

HANDS Original

Notes

This watch employs a very unusual, apparently experimental balance: the top part is made of steel and is fused to the platinum bottom. Leopold Secheret, casemaker, entered his mark in Paris in May 1834. He was the casemaker Breguet Neveu most used. Madame la Maréchale de Lauriston was the wife of Jacques Law, Marquis de Lauriston (1768 - 1828), Aide de camp to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 and 1805, Ambassador to Russia in 1811, and nominated Maréchal de France by Louis XVIII. He participated in the 1823 Spanish expedition.