Exceptional Collectors Timepieces, Ho...

Geneva, May 15, 2005

LOT 198

"Lord Gower" Breguet, Paris, No. 3816, sold to Lord Gower, February 4, 1826, for the sum of 2875 Francs. Very fine and very rare small gilt bronze travelling clock with quarter repeating and alarm. Accompanied by a Breguet Certificate.

CHF 110,000 - 140,000

EUR 70,000 - 90,000 / USD 95,000 - 120,000

Sold: CHF 237,250

C. Multi-piece, glazed sides with back and front doors, the corners flanked by Doric pilasters, the entablatureschased and engraved with stylised flowers, foliage and anthemions on a matted ground, hinged handle issuingfrom dog's head brackets, four turned ball finials, the base with pierced urn and flower sound-fret, turned ribbedbun feet. D. Silver, with radial Roman numerals, outer dot minute divisions and inner dot alarm divisions, engineturned centre, engine turned gilt mask with applied silvered plaque "N 3816", winding and alarm setting holes.Blued steel alarm hand and blued steel Breguet hour and minute hands. M. rectangular 85 x 60 mm, brass, largesingle spring barrel, platform escapement with straight line counterpoised long lever escapement, cut bimetallictwo-arm compensation balance, outer lamina with temperature screws, blued steel Breguet balance-spring, 16-tooth brass escape wheel, pallet fork with double roller and arrowhead-shaped gold guard pin, entire escapementjeweled, parachute on the top pivot, index regulator, pump-wound quarter repeating on a bell, the plunger on topof the case, pull-wind alarm with pull cord symetrically opposite the repeat plunger.Dial signed.Dim. 123 x 86 x 64 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland (1758 - 1833). Infamous reformer. Leveson-Gower was the son of a noted English family and succeeded his father as Marquess of Stafford in 1803. He had married Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, in 1785. He served as British Ambassador to France and was in Paris at the time of the French Revolution. Leveson-Gower and his wife were arrested for attempt-ing to help Marie Antoinette and her son escape. As British Ambassador in Paris, he would almost certainly have known Breguet personally in the years leading up to the revolution. Gower fled France after his release from prison and would not have been able to return until at least after the defeat of Napoleon. Lord Gower presumably returned to Paris before 1823 and placed the order for this clock, it was collected by his representative upon completion. The Leveson-Gower family were immensely rich and it is therefore not surprising that he purchased a clock in the upper price ranges for Breguet's work. Leveson-Gower was made 1st Duke of Sutherland in his own right just months before his death. He died at Dunrobin Castle and is buried at Dornoch. He is remembered by a large and controversial statue on Beinn Bhragaidh, overlooking Golspie.