The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 194

Amor seduces Innocence.Piguet & Meylan, Geneva, No. 7509 and 7624, circa 1820.Magnificent and rare, asymmetrically painted pair of 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set, centre-seconds, quarter repeating watches, with polished steel movements and special escapements.

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Sold: CHF 773,500

C. Four-body, 'Empire', the back covers very finely painted on enamel with scenes representing Amor and Innocence, after Pierre Prud'hon's (1758-1823) composition of 1812 with which he wished to be accepted by the French Academy. The scene on one watch is a mirror image of that on the other. The band, bow and pendant decorated in a geometrical pattern of red and blue enamels, set with half pearls, gold hinged glazed cuvettes.D. White enamel, bold, radial Roman chapters, outer minute and second divisions. Blued-steel 'lozenge' hands.M. 49 mm o, entirely blued and polished steel, blued pillar plate and repeater bridge, other bridges mirror-polished, hanging barrel, polished trains, cylinder escapements, monometallic three-arm balances, flat balance springs, visible repeating work on the back plates, repeating on two gongs by depressing the pendant.Stamped with maker's mark on the movement, inside the back cover, and inside the bezels.Diam. 60 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 318-319.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2*

Very good

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

Notes

Watches of such exceptional quality with polished steel movements and repeating mounted on the back plate are extremely rare and appear only to have been made by Piguet Lot Meylan. The choice of making movements in blued and mirror-polished steel, even if it was far more costly to execute, was due to the greater resistance of steel to humidity and oxidisation, which was an important factor in watches destined for the Chinese market.Many of the watches and singing bird boxes or automaton snuff boxes destined for the Chinese market were made as pairs, with symmetrically or asymmetrically painted scenes. The few that survived did so as single timepieces rather than as pairs, making this lot one of the very few still surviving together.Piguet Lot MeylanFor a biography, see page 224