Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Du Rhone, Apr 02, 2006

LOT 366

?Precision Timekeeper? French, Napoléon III period. Made circa 1850. Very fine, ebonised, month going, dead center seconds, weight driven wall regulator with deadbeat escapement and gridiron pendulum with temperature indication.

C. Ebonised, shaped pediment with moulded cornice, three finials and applied gilt-bronze bacchus mask, shaped and glazed hinged door and glazed sides, outset finials at the top and base, applied gilt-bronze paterae. D. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, moulded gilt-bronze bezel. Blued steel ?Breguet? hour and minute hands, arrow seconds hand. M. Massive, gilt brass shaped plates, four massive cylindrical pillars, five wheel train, the wheels with five crossings, maintaining power, deadbeat escapement with jewelled pallets, crutch with beat adjustment and blued steel banking pins, 9-rod gridiron pendulum with temperature indication calibrated from 0-25, separate suspension mounted on a massive brass plate on the backboard, massive brass bob with regulation wheel. Dim. 187 x 58 x 23 cm.