Important Watches, Wristwatches and C...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Oct 15, 1994

LOT 615

Not signed, attributed to Piguet & Capt, Geneva, circa 1810.

CHF 0 - 0

Magnificent and extremely rare 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set musical fan with inset watch. Fan. Green translucent enamel panels with blue champleve enamel and split-pearl inlaid decoration over the handles, the bases with small enamel panels framed with splitpearls, painted with bunches of flowers. Vellum leaf painted with a mythological scene on the front and an allegorical scene on the back spreading over pierced and chased gold sticks. One handle opens to reveal the watch, the other contains the musical box with slide on the edge. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and subsidiary seconds dial, flanking the exposed diamond-studded three-arm balance. Blued steel "spade" hands. M. GiIt brass, shaped inverted bar calibre with going barrel, cylinder escapement. Pinbarrel musical train with 6 stacked vibrating steel blades. In very good condition. Dim. 195 mm.


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Notes

Formerly in the collection of King Farouk of Egypt this fan was sold in the Palace Collections Sale in 1954 as lot 609 (Sotheby's Catalogue). Gold and enamel fans with inset watch are extremely rare, they were usually made for the Chinese market. One of them, signed James Upjohn, made circa 1755, is now in the collection of the Watch and Clock Museum of Wuppertal, another in the style of James Cox, was sold by Antiquorum in Geneva on the 14th October 1984, lot 230 of the catalogue. One other example only of a similar fan with watch and music, is known to exist. In the collection of Sir David Salomons, it is described and illustrated by George Daniels and Ohannes Markarian in Watches and Clocks in the Sir David Salomons Collection, Sotheby Publications, pp. 168-169, No. 99. Isaac Daniel Piguet and Henry Capt, partners from 1802 to 1811, specialised in music and automaton watches, musical automatons. They created in 1802, two small movements with five vibrating blades on five notes, made to be insert in rings.