The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 108

Bras-en-l'airFrères Veigneur à Genève, circa 1790.Very fine and rare 18 ct. gold and enamel Bras-en-l'air automaton watch.

CHF 12,000 - 16,000

USD 7,000 - 9,500

Sold: CHF 23,000

C. Double-body, 'Directoire', polished, back with winding aperture covered with a shutter. D. White enamel, bold Arabic hour sector to the left, sector with minute divisions and Arabic five-minute numerals to the right, applied multicoloured gold figure of an animated warrior pointing to the hours and minutes with his weapons on two sectors by depressing the pendant, the head of the warrior turns from right to left, a small painted landscape on the foreground. M. Hinged, gilt brass full plate wih cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring, gilt continental cock with polished steel end-piece, rack andpinion regulator.Signed on the dial and movement.Diam. 54 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page 180-181.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 4 - 15
Movement: 3 - 5 - 6*
Dial: 3

Good

Notes

The current lot is a very fine example of the so-called 'Bras en l'air' watches, featuring one of the most original ways to display time. Few watches of this type were made towards the end of the eighteenth century. They enjoyed a successful revival during the Art Deco period thanks to artists such as Ferdinand Verger, who produced them for the best jewellers such as Van Cleef Lot Arpels in Paris, Gübelin in Lucerne and Caldwell or Tiffany in the U.S.A.Isaac and Jean Marc Veigneur.Watch manufacturers from 1770 to 1796. Made watches of high quality with automatons and music, decimal watches, repeaters, form watches, skeletonised watches, of full plate type as well as with bridges. Often used virgule and cylinder escapements. From 1796 to 1802 they formed a partnership with Louis Ceret, one of the two directors of the Royal Manufacture of Ferney organised by Voltaire.'Dictionnaire des horlogers genevois', Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1998.