Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

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

LOT 49

?Allegory of Autumn? Piguet & Meylan, Genève, No. 6019, the case by Frères Oltramare. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1815. Extremely fine and very rare, 18K gold and painted on enamel, pearl-set, center seconds, musical, quarterrepeating pocket watch playing music on the hour or at will, the enamel by Jean Abraham Lissignol (1749-1819).

CHF 150,000 - 200,000

EUR 95,000 - 130,000 / USD 120,000 - 160,000

Sold: CHF 312,900

C. Four-body, "Empire", the back with a very finely painted on enamel portrait of a young lady in a red dress, yellow scarf, white headdress and grapes in her hair, emblematic of autumn, split pearl-set border, the outer border decorated with translucent imperial blue enamel and red and green split pearl-set enamel flowers, the band, pendant and bow decorated to match, the bezels set with split pearls, bolt at 6 o'clock to activate the music, lever at 4 o'clock protruding from under the cuvette for music/silent. Hinged gold cuvette decorated with a champleve enamel musical trophy. D. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute divisions and Arabic quarter-hour numerals. Gold ?lozenge? hands. M. 46 mm, gilt brass, going barrels, cylinder escapement, threearm gold balance with flat balance spring, index regulator, sur plateau musical movement with 23 vibrating teeth playing on both sides of the pinned disc, repeating on gongs activated by depressing the pendant. Dial signed Vaucher, Fleurier, case punched with casemaker's mark ?FO?, movement punched with Piguet & Meylan?s mark ?PM?. Diam. 54 mm. Property of a European Collector


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-33

Good

Restored
Movement: 2

Very good
Dial: 3-65-01

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

It appears that Piguet & Meylan made two series of watches with portraits of ladies, one depicting ?The Four Seasons? (?La Montre Chinoise?, Alfred Chapuis and Gustave Loup, p. 72), and the other ladies in various modes of dress. Another from the same series is in the Rolex Wilsdorf Collection (Pl. 41 in the book ?Montres et Emaux de Genève?). Both series are clearly painted by the same artist. A similar portrait decorates the watch sold by Antiquorum on October 11, 2003, lot 120, also June 20, 1998, lot 474. A very similar watch, No. 6016, but with the image reversed, is in The Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva. Jean Abraham Lissignol. Born in Geneva on May 1749, died in Plainpalais on June 28, 1819. One of the best enamel painters of the later part of the eighteenth century, he was the pupil of Jean-Marc Roux and later became his partner. He specialized in decorating enameled snuffboxes and watch cases, working for Jaquet-Droz, Leschot, the Rochat brothers, and John Rich. Frères Oltramare Working in Geneva between 1810/11 and 1826. ?Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois?, Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1998.