The Mondani Collection of Rolex Wrist...

Geneva, May 14, 2006

LOT 738

?Slow-Beat Frictional Rest Escapement? Marcinhes a Paris. Made circa 1770. Extremely fine and important, 18K gold, ?two time-zone?, double-dialed pocket watch with mock pendulum and slow-beat frictional rest escapement with pirouette.

CHF 33,000 - 38,000

EUR 21,000 - 25,000 / USD 25,000 - 30,000

Sold: CHF 61,360

C. Two-body, ?Louis XV?, engraved bezels, both sides glazed. D. Mean time dial: White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and Arabic five minute numerals, winding aperture at 12, secured by a screw. Gold ?beetle and poker? hands. Reverse dial: small, eccentric, white enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and Arabic five minute numerals, border of finely chased vari-colored gold leaf-swags above four pillars and a vase of flowers, engraved gold, mirror-polished and blued steel background, aperture for the mock pendulum below. M. 37 mm., gilt brass, full plate, conical pillars, going barrel, frictional rest escapement, the escape-wheel with ?C? shaped teeth, steel balance staff mounted with the counterpoised mock pendulum arm, inverted three-arm balance wheel mounted between the dial and frontplate with toothed rim geared to the three-arm brass pirouette wheel, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator lever in the dial-plate. Dial signed. Diam. 43 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-24-04

Good

Slightly chipped

HANDS Later

Notes

This extremely rare and ingenious watch is both mechanically fascinating and extremely decorative. Each dial can be set independently without disturbing the other dial, though both are driven by the same gearing. This is achieved due to the central pinion being friction fitted so that the power from the going barrel is sufficient to drive the gearing but allowing enough ?slip? so that when the hands are set on one side, the hands on the other side do not move during setting. The escapement is highly unusual and very rare, it is a frictional rest escapement with a large escape wheel with ?C? shaped teeth at right angles to the wheel and acting against a steel staff. In operation it is not unlike the action of a cylinder escapement. The balance wheel itself has a toothed periphery which drives the pirouette wheel pinion. Slow beating watches such as the present watch and those made by Pouzait slightly later were perhaps partly inspired by the desire to make the watches appear to have more ?accurate? timekeeping abilities. Discerning buyers were used to seeing regulator clocks with deadbeat or pin wheel escapements and slow-beating pendulums so that the watchmaker would have presented a watch of this type as something special and sophisticated. Pierre-François Marcinhes (1739 ? 1778) Of Genevan origin, son of the engraver Jean-Philippe, he was apprenticed to Jean-Pierre Soubeyran in 1753. See: ?Dictionnaire des horlogers genevois?, Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, 1997. Pierre-François Marcinhes (detail of the frictional rest escapement)