The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 222

The Temptation.Lepaute a Paris, No. 191, circa 1775.Very fine and rare small 20 ct. gold and enamel quarter repeating lady's pendant watch.

CHF 6,000 - 8,000

USD 3,500 - 5,000

Sold: CHF 10,350

C. Two-body, 'Louis XV', the painted enamel scene on the back showing a young lady being tempted by the offer of an elderly gentleman's bag of gold, adapted from 'Die Versuchung' (The Temptation) by Herman Van der Myn (1684 - 1741), bezels engraved with geometrical patterns, the back border pierced for sound. D. White enamel, radial Roman chapters, outer Arabic minutes. Skeleton gold 'fleur de lis' hands. M. 23.4 mm o, hinged, gilt brass full plate, cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, verge esapement, plain three-arm brass balance with blued-steel flat balance spring, continental cock pierced and engraved, rack and pinion regulator with silver plate, repeating on bell by depressing the pendant.Signed on the movement.Diam. 30 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 152-153.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3 - 5 - 6*
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

Lepaute.One of most eminent families of Paris watch and clockmakers from the end of the 18th century. Jean André Lepaute (born 1720), in 1749 married Nicole Reine Etable de la Brière, a very remarkable woman who was a well known scholar, elected to the Académie des Sciences of Beziers in 1761. In 1760 he was joined by his brother, Jean Baptiste (born 1727), and in 1763 by his two nephews Pierre Henry and Pierre Bazile Lepaute. The company was chosen to build a clock with equation of time for the City Hal as well as for Les Invalides in Paris, and a member of the family, became Clockmaker to the Emperor Napoléon, another to Louis Philippe and Napoléon III.