The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 320

The Stag HuntAttributed to Piguet & Capt, Geneva, circa 1805.Magnificent and extremely rare 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set musical spyglass with concealed automaton scene and built-in watch, made for the Chinese market.

C. Fully operational spyglass with two concentric sliding cylinders, normal eyepiece and object lenses. The eyepiece and neck have a foliate pattern of blue, white and black champlevé enamel. The two cylinders are decorated with the same colours, but in a geometrical pattern, the upper and lower edges set with half pearls. The inner cylinder can be rotated, revealing either the automaton or the watch. The automaton represents a merry-go-round with a scene of dogs and hunters chasing a stag againt an enamelled panel depicting a house in a woodland setting with a moving waterfall. There are applied multi-coloured gold fruits, flowers and trees framing the automaton scene. D. White enamel, Arabic numerals, outer minute divisions, quarter minute Arabic numerals. Blued-steel Breguet hands. M. 18.3 mm o, circular, gilt brass full plate, cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain for the going train, verge escapement, plain brass balance, continental gilt cock pierced and engraved, rack and pinionegulator with silver plate. The musical and automaton movement with gilt brass plate and bridges, five-wheel train finished with a pinion governor set in an adjustable, eccentric bushing, the music with pinned barrel and six stacked blued-steel tuned teeth, the merry-go-round driven from the contrate teeth of the second wheel, the figures moving by means of a set of spring-loaded levers, the last one acting on a ribbed semi-circle mounted from underneath just in front of the scene, so that the fgures do not move when passing behind the scene, Maltese cross stop work.Diam. 48 mm, length 90 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 398-399.