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Hotel Nogalhilton Geneve, Nov 11, 2001

LOT 282

Penelope and the SuitorsQuare & Horseman, London, 5275, hallmarked 1725-26.Very fine and rare 22K gold repoussé pair-cased watch.

CHF 14,000 - 18,000

USD 8,800 - 11,000

Sold: CHF 17,250

C. Outer: two-body, repoussé with mythological scene, four repoussé vignettes on the edge with portraits of two men and two women alternating with pierced and engraved decorations, bezel pierced and engraved for sound and repoussé with four vignettes depicting flowers. Inner: two-body, "bassine", polished. D. Gold, champlevé radial Roman numerals, outer minute ring with five-minute Arabic markers on polished oval cartouches, center chased with a shield. Blued steel "beetle and poker" hands. M. 3,5 mm, gilt full plate with Egyptian pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain steel balance with flat balance spring, single-footed cock with streamers and almost straight foot, pierced and engraved with symmetrical stylized foliage, mask in the neck, rack and pinion regulator with silver plate.Signed on dial and movement.Diam. 53 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent

Case: 3 - 11 - 14
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense

Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

Penelope and the SuitorsDuring Ulysse's twenty-year absence, Penelope remained faithful to her husband. She held off the suitors who demanded her hand for three years, by pretending that she was weaving a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes; in fact, she undid every night the work she had done during the day. Penelope's constancy and patience have become proverbial. Daniel Quare (c. 1648-1724)Was admitted as a brother of the Clockmakers' Company in 1671 and served as Master in 1708. First at St. Martin's-le -Grand, and later at the King's Arms, Exchange Alley, in 1718 he entered into a partnership with Stephen Horseman, who had been apprentice to him, and business was carried on at the same address under the title of Quare and Horseman. After his death, Horseman carried on alone under the name of the partnership until 1733 when he became bankrupt and the stock of the business was solup. Numbers of watches, signed: Quare & Horseman, are known to from 4677 to 5503, and of repeaters from 843 to 1129.According to the Society of Friends, Daniel Quare was a devout Quaker, and at first refused the office of Clockmaker to George I because he objected to taking the oath of allegiance. This difficulty however was overcome and freedom to enter the palace by the back stairs was accorded to himAbout 1680, he produced repeating watches of his own design, and when Reverent Edward Barlow, in 1686, sought to patent a repeating device, Quare, backed by the Clockmakers' Company, opposed the monopoly. The case was considered by the Privy Council on 2nd March 1687, and Barlow's application for patent refused. In Quare's arrangement a single push on a pin projecting from the case near the pendant sufficed to sound the hours and quarters, while Barlow's required a distinct action for each. Theing, after a trial of both repeating watches, preferred that of Quare, which fact was published in the Gazette .In 1695, Quare obtained a patent for portable weather glass, and several instruments made by him, according to his specification, are known to exist. If the concentric minute hand was in use long before him, Quare improved such indicators in devising a mechanism so that the hour and minute hands should be actuated together. The earliest known form of this device is applied to a clockwatch.