Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

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

LOT 51

?Allegory of Summer? Piguet & Meylan, No. 6017, the case by Frères Oltramare, the enamel scene attributable to J-A Lissignol. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Extremely fine and very rare, quarter-repeating, center seconds, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set pocket watch, the enamel by Jean Abraham Lissignol (1749-1819).

CHF 160,000 - 200,000

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

Sold: CHF 424,900

C. Four-body, ?Empire?, the bezels pendant and bow decorated with pink ?champlevé? enamel and set with split-pearls in a scalloped pattern, the band, stem and bow decorated with a blue, pale green, red and black enamel with flower and geometric patterns, the back cover set with a very finely painted on enamel panel depicting a young lady representing ?summer? wearing a cream wrap and with roses and pearls in her hair, imperial blue translucent enamel border with a wavy-line engine-turned ground. Hinged gold cuvette decorated with flowers and foliage in imperial blue champlevé enamel. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute and seconds track with Arabic 15-second numerals. Blued steel ?serpentine? hands. M. 46 mm., frosted gilt, full plate, profusely chased and engraved with flowers and foliage in the Chinese taste, going barrel, cylinder escapement, three-arm gold balance with polished steel endplate, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by depressing the pendant. Case punched with the casemaker?s mark ?FO?, movement punched with Piguet & Meylan?s mark ?PM? on the dial plate. Diam. 56 mm. Property of a European Collector


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2

Very good
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

A watch from this series ?Winter?, No. 6170, is in the Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva. A similar watch from the same series is in the Rolex Wilsdorf Collection (Pl. 41 in the book ?Montres et Emaux de Genève?). 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.