Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Du Rhône, Nov 12, 2006

LOT 48

?The Barking Dog? Piguet & Meylan, Geneve, No. 114, made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Extremely fine and extremely rare, large, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set, quarter-repeating ?barking dog? automaton watch.

CHF 160,000 - 200,000

EUR 100,000 - 125,000 / USD 130,000 - 160,000

Sold: CHF 391,300

C. Four-body, ?Empire?, the bezel and border of translucent imperial blue enamel set with graduated split-pearls, the band decorated with light blue, red and white enamel lozenges and flowerheads, the hinged and sprung back cover set with a very fine painted on enamel panel decorated with a bouquet of summer flowers against a pale green ground aperture for the sound at six o'clock, opening automatically when barking is activated, bolt at 1 o?clock to lock the repeat. Hinged gilt metal cuvette. D. Eccentric, gold, set at the top of a translucent imperial blue enamel engine-turned plate, polished Roman numerals, outer dot minute divisions and engine turned center, lower part with applied varicolored gold automaton scene of a dog barking at a swan which appears to be hissing back, the dog nodding its head with each movement of the bellows. Blued steel ?Breguet? hands. M. 50 mm., gilt brass half-plate, free-standing barrel, cylinder escapement, steel escape wheel, plain three-arm brass balance, flat balance spring, index regulator, the repeating barking mechanism with round bellows and whistle activated by depressing the pendant. Punched with the maker's mark ?PM? in a lozenge inside the cuvette, the case back panel stamped with casemaker's mark ?I.E? in lozenge. Diam. 60 mm. Property of a European Collector


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 2

Very good
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

The present watch repeats the hours and quarters with the sound of a barking dog; the rarest form of repeating. The scene is taken after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, (1686-1755) ?Swan Attacked by a Dog?, of which he painted several copies in the 1740s. The case of the present watch is particularly fine and one of the grandest cases known for a barking dog watch. It has survived in remarkable condition and would have been destined for the Imperial Chinese court. It is now known that Piguet & Meylan used at least two separate numbering series. The barking dog series numbers are usually lower than 300. The other types of watches bear numbers up to the 7000s; one watch is known in the 9000s. It is likely that the company began its production with the barking dog models, then proceeded to other ones, but continued the production of the barking dog watches with the first series of numbers. A similar watch was sold by Sotheby?s in the Masterpieces from the Time Museum sale, Oct. 13, 2004, lot 580. Literature: Clutton, Cecil and Daniels, George, Watches. London, Third Edition, 1979, figs. 245 a-d.