Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Hong Kong, Apr 23, 2006

LOT 424

?Titus and Berenice? Ilbery, London, No. 7078. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Very fine and rare, 18K gold and painted on enamel pocket watch with duplex escapement.

HKD 230,000 - 300,000

USD 30,000 - 40,000 / EUR 25,000 - 32,000

Sold: HKD 424,800

C. Two-body, the spring-loaded back cover very finely painted with a scene depicting Titus and Berenice in a classical wooded landscape and a dark green guilloché enamel background, the bezels and pendant with green, white, blue and black champlevé enamel geometrical patterns. Hinged gilt metal cuvette mounted to the movement ring. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds. Gold ?heart? hands. M. 49 mm, gilt brass, fully engraved ?Chinese? caliber, free-standing barrel, duplex escapement, plain five-arm flat-rim steel balance, flat blued steel balance spring, diamond endstone, index regulator. Movement signed. Diam. 59 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-54

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

Titus and Berenice Titus, the elder son of emperor Vespasian, was born in AD 39. From AD 61 to 63 he served in Germany and Britain as military tribune. He then returned to Rome and married Arrecina Tertulla, the daughter of a former commander of the Praetorian guard. A year later Arrecina died and Titus married Marcia Furnilla. She was of a distinguished family which had connections to opponents of Nero. After the failure of the Pisonian conspiracy, Titus thought it best not to be connected in any way with any potential plotters and hence divorced Marcia in AD 65. The same year Titus was appointed quaestor, and became commander one of his father's three legions in Judea in AD 67 (XV Legion 'Apollinaris'). A serious threat to Titus' succession was his affair with the Jewish princess Berenice, ten years his senior, beautiful and with powerful connections in Rome. She was the daughter (or sister) of the Jewish king, Herod Agrippa II, and Titus called her to Rome in AD 75. As he had divorced his second wife Marcia Furnilla in AD 65, Titus was free to remarry. And for a while Berenice lived openly with Titus in the palace. But the pressure of public opinion, mixed with anti-Semitism and xenophobia, forced them apart. There was even talk of her being a ?new Cleopatra? Rome was not prepared to tolerate an eastern woman close to power and so Berenice had to return home. The scene depicted on the present watch shows Berenice parting from Titus.