Important Watches, Wristwatches and C...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Oct 17, 1993

LOT 253

Tho. Tompion, London, 86, circa 1690. An exceptionally rare and fine silver pair-cased alarm watch.

CHF 20,000 - 25,000

C. Outer: Two-body, with square hinge, the bezels pierced with a pattern of large and small ring decorated roundels. Inner: Two-body, the border of the back finely pierced and engraved with foliage inhabited by birds, with taille-douce engraved landscapes at 6 o'clock and at the pendant, and numbered 86. D. Silver champleve, with Roman and Arabic hour and minute numerals, the concentric alarm disc with Arabic numerals and pinholes for setting. Blued-steel beetle-and poker hands. M. GiIt full-plate with pierced tulip pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement with plain three-arm steel balance with turned rim, flat balance spring with regulator and silver setting disc. Large eared balance cock.pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage. Alarm train of steel with pierced and engraved fixed barrel, blued-steel stop-work and sounding on a bell in the back of the case. Movement secured to the dial plate by a latch. Signed on the dial, numbered on the case. In very good condition. Diam. 57mm.


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Notes

Thomas Tompion, London, born 1639, Clockmakers Company 1671, Master 1704, died 1713. Certainly the most famous English clockmaker, and the man responsible for the rise to supremacy of English horology in the 18th. century. Although Tompion's numbering series surpasses 4000 for plain watches and almost 400 for repeaters, the number of alarm watches known by him is minimal, perhaps no more than 5-10 having so far been discovered. It seems likely that they were part of the repeating watch numbering system, which would date this example to 1685-1690. There are small French import marks on the case rim indicating that the watch was imported into France at some time after 1838.