The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 35

Lepine A Paris, Swiss, circa 1830.Very fine 18 ct. gold, silver and enamel, digital jump-hour watch.

CHF 6,000 - 8,000

USD 3,500 - 5,000

Sold: CHF 8,050

C. Four-body, demi-bassine, entirely decorated with elaborate flowers, leaves, and a horn of plenty against dark blue and white champlevé enamel, bezel with flowers and foliage against matching blue enamel, hinged silver cuvette. D. Silver, engine-turned, aperture at the top for the Arabic digital hour, eccentric minute ring below, sunk subsidiary seconds. Blued-steel 'cathedral' hand. M. 46.7 mm o, gilt brass early bar calibre, free-standing barrel, 6 jewels, cylinder escapement, steel escape weel mounted below the pillar plate on the dial side, plain gilded three-arm balance with blued-steel flat balance spring.Signed on the cuvette and the dial.Diam. 54 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page 206-207.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3 - 8 - 18
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

The idea of mounting parts of the train below the pillar plate seems to have been initiated by Breguet. It allows the movement to be designed in a very simple and beautiful manner. Breguet's striving for esthetic harmony of the movement led to a design in which only the balance, the barrel, and the centre wheel were exposed. One such watch was sold to King George IV of England, another is known to have been sold to Prince Lubomirski. This watch, though it does not go quite so far in its design,eautifully displays the celebrated Breguet aesthetic design.