Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces

Geneva, Nov 10, 2013

LOT 382

ELEIH - VIRTUE & VICE Jean Eleih, London, No. 267, the case signed Brigtoche. Made in Friedberg, circa 1740. Extremely fine and rare, large, repoussé silver, four-train coach watch with hour and quarter striking and repeating, date, alarm and the original silver-mounted and shagreen outer case.

CHF 18,000 - 28,000

HKD 150,000 - 230,000 / USD 20,000 - 30,000

Sold: CHF 20,000

Two-body, very finely pierced, chased and engraved with asymmetric scrollwork, bezel decorated to match, the back with a scene of Hercules and perhaps Minerva with Cupid and figures representing vices behind, military trophy below, strike/silent lever in the dial plate, pendant with loose barrel and ring. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and Arabic five minute numerals, date aperture above 6, inner enamel alarm disc with Arabic numerals and half and quarter hour markers. Fine pierced blued steel hands. 81 mm., gilt, full-plate, square baluster pillars, fusee with chain, foliate engraved spring barrels for the striking, repeating and alarm trains, polished steel hammers, verge escapement, three-arm brass balance, blued steel flat balance-spring, very finely pierced, chased and engraved backplate furniture, polished steel endplate with faceted red endstone, calibrated silver regulator disc, trip quarter repeating, striking and alarm on a bell in the back of the case, with independent trains for quarters and hours, a lever for silence/strike. Movement signed, case signed Brigtoche.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-77-01

Good

ENAMEL AND VARIOUS TYPES OF DECORATION Restored soft enamel

HANDS Original

Notes

DIAM. 128 mm. This watch, a very fine example of its type with beautifully made repousse case, shows many of the characteristics of those watches made in Friedberg for other makers across Europe. Friedberg watchmakers specialized in the production of repeating and striking watches. From the beginning of the 18th century, they were making watches and coach watches with quarter, half quarter and even minute repeating mechanisms and selling them all over Europe. The cases, often of very high quality, were produced in Augsburg and the movements were made in the style of the country for which they were destined. Some of them were signed by their makers, some bear signatures of eminent French and English makers (perhaps at their request, when they were retailing them), still others bear the signature of their makers, written backwards, together with the names of cities in which they were intended to be sold. Until the relatively recent discovery of a large quantity of ebauches, blancs and completed movements which had never been cased, and their study by serious specialists such as Sebastian Whitestone, these watches were wrongly attributed to unrecorded makers from different European countries. For an article on German watches by Christian Pfeiffer Belli, see: Antiquorum Vox Magazine, Spring 2006, p. 14.