The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 382

La Madonna di LoretoUnsigned, Geneva, No. 7673, circa 1820.Very fine and rare 18 ct. gold and enamel two-train hour-striking musical automaton watch with quarter repeating and centre seconds, made for the Oriental market.

C. Three-body, 'Empire', the back cover with a very finely painted enamel scene depicting the Holy Family after Raphael's Madonna di Loreto of 1509-1510. The band in turquoise champlevé enamel with a red and green circle and a navette pattern, the bezels set with half pearls, the pendant and bow en suite. Inside the back cover, there is a painted enamel interior scene of a lady harpist, whose arms move approximately in time with the music.D. White enamel, Roman chapters, outer minute and fifth-seconds divisions with fifteen-minute Arabic numerals. Blued-steel Breguet hands. M. 45.2 mm o, gilt bridge calibre, fixed barrel, cylinder escapement, three-arm gold balance, flat balance spring, the music a revolving disc with pins on both sides, playing on 22 tuned teeth arranged in a fan shape, playing on the hour and on demand, repeating on two gongs by depressing the pendant, the automaton driven from a ratchet wheel set on the musicarrel arbor.Dim. 52 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 320-321.