Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces

Geneva, May 14, 2017

LOT 151

"ROMAN CHARITY" CABRIER,London,Number 278. Enamel signed Huaud le puisné fecit, circa 1680-1685. The movement, dial and bezel circa 1730. Very fine and important painted on enamel 21K.

CHF 12,000 - 22,000

HKD 96,000 - 176,000 / USD 12,000 - 22,000

TO BE SOLD WITHOUT RESERVE

Sold: CHF 8,750

Two-body, "bassine" with deep back and inward edges, back finely painted on enamel depicting Roman Charity, band with four vignettes, each with a rural scene, inside painted with a house by a river, a tree in the foreground. Silver champleve, radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and Arabic five-minute numerals. Steel beetle and poker hands. 33 mm. frosted gilt full-plate with baluster pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, steel balance with flat balance spring, silvered single- footed cock.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3-6*

Good

Slightly oxidized

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 4-6-04

Fair

Slightly oxidized

HANDS Later

Notes

DIAM. 40 mm. The painting (approx. 1626) of Simon Vouet (1590-1649) is exposed today in Bayonne at the Musee des Beaux-arts Bonnat-Helleu (oil on canvas Inv.CM 169). The work is then engraved by Claude Mellan (1598-1688). The painting shows the influence of Caravaggio (1571-1610) on the young Simon Vouet. Its dark background composition highlights the face of Pero and the harmony of colors. The subject comes from the historian Valere Maxime (1st century after Jesus-Christ). Condemned to die of hunger in his cell, the old Cimon is visited daily by his daughter Pero. Intrigued by his survival, despite his hunger strike, his captor discovers that Pero breast feeds her father daily. The judges, faced with her devotion, set her father free. In the XVIIIth century iconography, free acts of charity are often the subject of enamel pocket watches such as Roman charity as well as Cleopatra's suicide. Similar watch cases signed or attributed to the Freres Huaut, Geneva or Berlin can be found at the Patek Philippe museum (INV. 244,447,667) or in the New York Metropolitan museum of Art. The present lot was previously sold by Neumarkt on September 20, 1968 To be sold without reserve