Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

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

LOT 52

?La Bonne Nourrice? Piguet & Meylan, No. 3644, the case by Frères Oltramare. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1815. Extremely fine and very rare, quarter-repeating, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set pocket watch.

C. Four-body, ?Empire?, the bezels pendant and bow set with split-pearls, the band with a blue enamel trellis pattern and set with seed pearls, the back cover set with a very finely painted on enamel panel depicting a mother with three children in a landscape. Hinged gold cuvette decorated with flowers and foliage in imperial blue champlevé enamel. D. White enamel by D. Massagli, Lucca, eccentric, the meantime dial in the upper half with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds in the lower half. Blued steel ?serpentine? hands. M. 46 mm., frosted gilt, standing barrel, jewelled cylinder escapement, three-arm gold balance, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by depressing the pendant. Dial signed on the reverse ?D. Massagli, Lucca, Case punched with the casemaker?s mark ?FO?, movement punched with Piguet & Meylan?s mark ?PM? on the dial plate. Diam. 55 mm. Property of a European Collector