Important Watches Collector's Wristwa...

The Ritz-carlton Hotel, Feb 20, 2005

LOT 229

?Blind Man's Buff? Attributed to Jaquet Droz, Geneva, circa 1790. Made for the Chinese market. Rare and magnificent 18K gold enamel and pearl-set urn form watch with center seconds. Original plush lined morocco fitted box with gold tooled detail and Royal crown.

HKD 850,000 - 1,000,000

EUR 85,000 - 100,000 / USD 110,000 - 130,000

Sold: HKD 975,000

C. Three-body, designed as an urn, the band, rim of the back,pendant, bow and oval foot with blue, black and white cham-pleveenamel decoration, the hinged back overlaid with bluetranslucent enamel over an engine turned ground, the front withpearl set border and bezel framed by a scallop-edged rosette ofgold paillons, dark blue translucent enamel over an engineturned ground with a painted oval enamel scene above the dialof three children playing blind man's buff in a rural landscape.Hinged rectangular cuvette with canted corners and blue, whiteand black champleve enamel decoration, the winding apertureswith white enamel highlighted arrows indicating the direction ofwinding. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and quarterminute markers, outer seconds markers, the reverse numbered463. Pierced gold ?urn? hands. M. 63 x 37 mm., rectangular giltbrass with canted corners, the plates engraved with a mask andscrolling foliage, large going barrel, cylinder escapement, brassthree-arm balance with flat-rim, blued steel flat spiral springwith regulator.Dim. 123 mm. high. Width 66 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3

Good
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

Urn-shaped watches of this type, fitted with a seal foot, rarely appear at auction. The movement, although made in Geneva is very much inspired by the English style and is engraved with the "Green Man", a figure of good fortune and rebirth from European folklore. The construction of the present watch leaves little doubt that it is the work of Jaquet Droz and can be com-pared to other unsigned pieces which typify the magnificent objects that made the reputation of the Jaquet Droz firm. These watches were produced as wonderful individual presentation pieces and the original morocco leather box sold with the present watch is tooled with a Royal crown, attesting to its illustrious provenance. The charming painted enamel scene decorating the present watch depicts children playing the traditional game of blind man's buff. This scene derives from English genre paintings by artists such as William Hamilton, Francis Wheatley and William Redmore Bigg who specialised in images of romanticised English rural life in the last quarter of the 18th Century. Their paintings were engraved and sold as prints which were published by Francesco Bartelozzi, Burke and others. These genre prints were enormously popular and were used as models for Geneva enamelers, including Jean Louis Richter. For an article on Jaquet Droz's unsigned masterpieces see: Antiquorum Vox Magazine, Spring 2005.