Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

New York - The Fuller Building, Dec 07, 2006

LOT 254

?Old World Map and Star Chart? Atmos Clock Jaeger-LeCoultre, Swiss, Ref. 526-5. Made in the 1950s. Fine and rare, rectangular, gilt brass mantel clock with ?old world map and star chart? panels and wound by barometric changes.

USD 2,300 - 3,000

EUR 1,800 - 2,300

Sold: USD 2,950

C. Combined old world map and star chart on the two sides, star chart on the top, transparent back. The front panel shows a star chart and a famous astronomer at each corner, has an aperture to view the pendulum and a stepped plinth base. D. White with applied gilt faceted dart indexes and Arabic quarter-hour numerals. Gilt ?dauphine? hands. M. Cal. 526-5, gilt brass, vacuum chamber winding the going barrel, lever-escapement driven by annular tension pendulum, locking screw in the base below the pendulum disc. Case, movement and vacuum signed. Dim. 12 cm (width) x 16.5 cm (length) x 21.5 cm (height).


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good

Case: 3-52

Good

Movement: 2

Very good

Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

The design of this Atmos clock incorporates images inspired by both a map of the world and a star chart from the 16th century. The map of the world depicted on the side panels was taken from Dutch mapmaker Abraham Ortelius` (1527 -1598) world map for the atlas ?Theatrum Orbis Terrarum?. Meanwhile, some of the star chart images are based on a wood cutting by German artist and mathematician Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Dürer?s wood cutting was based on observations of German astronomers of the time. As in Dürer`s image, the clock depicts four famous astronomers in the corner of the front panel: Aratus Cilix, Ptolemeus Aegyptus, Marcus Manilius and Addorhaman Al-Suphi.