Important Watches, Collector's Wristw...

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Oct 13, 2001

LOT 575

John Ellicott, London, No.1610, case marked "JB"(John Beesley), with London hallmarks for 1734.Fine 22K gold pair-cased watch.

CHF 15,000 - 20,000

USD 9,000 - 12,000

Sold: CHF 18,975

C. Outer: two-body, the bezel repoussé with flowers and pierced with foliage, the back repoussé with a mythological scene depicting Jupiter and Juno, the border pierced and engraved with foliage and repoussé with four putti in cartouches. Inner: two-body, "bassine", polished. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and outer Arabic minute ring. Blued steel "poker and beetle" hands. M. Hinged gilt brass full plate with elaborate pillars, pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage, fusee with chain,erge escapement, plain steel three-arm balance, flat balance-spring, gilt brass cock pierced and engraved with a mask and scrolling foliage,diamond endstone.Signed on the back plate, inner case punched "J.B.".Diam. 48 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3 - 5 - 6 - 14
Movement: 3 - 5 - 6*
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

This watch is published in the Ruscitti book, as no. 25.John Ellicott (1706-1772)One of the most eminent English clock and watchmakers, and the son of John Ellicott, a warden of the Clockmakers' Company. In 1738 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, being recommended for that honor by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., Martin Folkes, John Senex, the celebrated globe maker, and John Hadley, the astronomer. At the meeting of the Royal Society, he became acquainted with James Ferguson, who afterwards frequently visited Ellicott's private house at St. John's Hackney, where an obseratory was built, and various scientific experiments were made.Ellicott was the inventor of a compensation pendulum in which the bob rests on the longer ends of two levers, of which the shorter ends are depressed by the superior expansion of a brass bar attached to the pendulum rod. It tended to operate in jerks and was not widely used.Ellicott's productions were distinguished by excellent workmanship. He paid great attention to the cylinder escapement and did much to bring it into use. He appears to have adopted it only two or three years after its invention by Graham in 1726. Ellicott was on the council of the Royal Society for three years, and read several papers, including one on the influence which two pendulum clocks were observed to have on each other.