The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 26

Unsigned, Geneva, circa 1780.Very fine and rare 18 ct. vari-coloured gold form watch designed as a lantern with three dials for three time zones.

CHF 10,000 - 14,000

USD 6,000 - 8,500

Sold: CHF 23,000

C. Three-body, top cover with small winding aperture revealed by pulling a lever at the side, top and bottom, covers hinged, decorated with applied vari-coloured leaves and flowers, swivel pendant. D. Three identicaldials of convex white enamel with Roman chapters and outer Arabic five-minutes. Gold 'Louis XV' hands.M. 26.6 mm o, gilt metal full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain brass balance, continental cock pierced and engraved with four rocailles, mounted under the top cover, motion work driven by a contrate wheel mounted on the extension of the centre wheel that meshes with three wheels, each driving motion works of the individual dials.Stamped inside bottom cover 'PG' under a coronet with two identical fleur de lis marks in lozenge.Dim. Length 38 mm, width 35 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page 382-383.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent

Case: 3 - 6
Movement: 4 - 5 - 6*
Dial: 13 - 18 - 02

Notes

Lantern form watches are usually found with three dials for time, day and date; three time zones is very rare, and would appear to be irrelevant in the 18th century. However it should be remembered that clocks were set by the sun, and the time therefore differed from town to town.John Ellicott (1706-1772)One of the most eminent English watch and clockmakers, and the son of John Ellicott, a warden of the Clockmakers' Company. In 1738 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, being recommended for that honour by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., Martin Folkes, John Senex, the celebrated globe maker, and John Hadley, the astronomer. At the meeting of the Royal Society, he became acquainted with James Ferguson, who afterwards frequently visited Ellicott's private house at St. John's Hackney, where an obsevatory was built, and various scientific experiments were made.Ellicott was the inventor of a compensation pendulum in which the bob rests on the longer ends of two levers, of which the shorter ends are depressed by the superior expansion of a brass bar attached to the pendulum rod. It tended to operate in jerks and was not widely used.Ellicott's productions were distinguished by excellent workmanship. He paid great attention to the cylinder escapement, as in the present watch, and did much to bring it into use. He appears to have adopted it only two or three years after its invention by Graham in 1726. Ellicott was on the council of the Royal Society for three years, and read several papers, including one on the Influence which two Pendulum Clocks were observed to have on each other.