The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 47

The AmphoraAttributable to Piguet & Capt, the enamel by the workshop of J-L. Richter, Geneva, circa 1805.Magnificent and extremely rare 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set musical form watch with automaton scene, designed as an amphora.

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C. The painted enamel panel below the watch covers a musical automaton scene. The oval watch has a central visible stone-set oscillating balance. The panel shows a mother with her child who is holding grapes, in the manner of Louise Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842). It is hinged so that when a catch is released it rises forwards. A small push on one side of the amphora sets the music and automaton going. A little boy to the left raises and lowers a stick, trying to encourage a dog to jump it. To the rigt, also in vari-coloured gold, is a young lady playing a guitar. The painted background, through which the mechanism is wound, is of a classical urn upon a pedestal within a wooded landscape.Seven rows of graduated pearls run to the base which is decorated in polychrome champlevé enamel. The decoration is repeated on the reverse of the amphora, and the sides have foliate engraving, pearls and polychrome champlevé enamel, some of which is translucent. Graduated pearls decorate the back as well as the front of the handles. An oval painted enamel of a pair of nesting doves within a garland of flowers covers the watch movement. This opens onto the cuvette through which the mechanism isound and set. The panel in the centre below has a pastoral scene of a herdsman driving his cattle to drink beside a bridge, with a village and castle beyond. D. Oval, blue enamel plate with an aperture for viewing the four-arm polished steel diamond-set balance, beneath, the white enamel dial with Breguet numerals, above, subsidiary seconds dial. Blued-steel 'spade' hands. M. 14.3 x 27 mm, oval, full plate brass, fixed barrel, cylinder escapement, steel escapement wheel, silver four-arm balance.Music and automaton driven by a five-wheel train, the last pinion with a small two-wing fly as a regulator. Pinned barrel with a stack of six tuned teeth. The automaton is activated by two cams mounted on the extension of an additional wheel driven by the musical train.Dim. 102 x 58 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page 402-403.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3 - 22
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 2 - 01

Notes

Gold and enamel form watches with music and an automaton scene are extremely rare. Even more so this model, which is recorded neither in 'Le Monde des Automates', nor in 'La Montre Chinoise'. One other watch of this type, designed as an amphora, is known to exist. (Antiquorum April, 23, 1995, lot No. 501).Dim. 103 x 59 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page .The present lot was offered at our very first auction on Oct 8, 1974, and held the place of honour, being illustrated on both the front and back covers of its - already collectable- catalogue.Piguet Lot Capt:Isaac Daniel Piguet (1775 - 1841) and Henry Capt (1775 - 1841) were partners from 1802 to 1811. They specialised in musical and automaton watches but also made very fine musical pieces with automata. Two small musical movements with five tuned teeth, playing tunes on five notes, were among their first, made in 1802. In 1811 Piguet became associated with Meylan, forming another famous firm, Piguet et Meylan.Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois, by Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1998.Richter Jean-Louis (1766-1841)He learned his art under David-Etienne-Roux and Philippe-Samuel-Théodore Roux, becoming a most renowned enamel painter. His speciality was the painting of landscapes and particularly lake-side scenes and marine-scapes, often representing ships in a harbour or battles with fighting Men-of-War, but, on occasion, also portraits and hunting scenes. He did not often sign his work, but it is clearly recognised as being in his hand from the style and quality of the painting. He applied his art principaly to watch cases and snuff boxes and these were largely destined for the Chinese, Turkish, British and Italian markets. In 1828 he was in partnership with Aimé-Julien Troll (1781-1852) and one can find work signed Richter et Troll.Richter, like other great enamel painters of the time, often found inspiration for his work from paintings or engravings by the artists then in fashion, Van der Myn (1684-1741), Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727-1785), John Francis Rigaud (1742-1820), John Hoffner (1748-1810) and Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815), or even from particularly famous scenes such as the 'Rape of Helen' from the engraving by Guido Reni (1575-1642), now in the Cabinet des Estampes, Paris.