History: According to the records this watch, sold originally on 10 February 1821, was bought back on 25 May 1822, for 1800 Francs. Resold on 13 August 1822, for 2400 Francs, to the Comtesse de Vintimille, after being converted at her request into a montre à tact. It was returned for restoration in 1837 by a Monsieur de Lostanges , and again in 1861 by a Monsieur Money, Captain in 9th Regiment of the line.
Note: In the fabrication and sales books, the calendar on this watch is qualified by the word extraordinaire. No explanation is given, and such a qualification does not appear against other watches with a date aperture from the same period. A possible explanation may be the positioning of the aperture between the numerals II and III. It is reset by a pin in the band of the case. The point of the à tact hand on the cover has an unrierhang running in a groove, a normal feature when only the hand is turning, and the cover is fixed.
PRINCESS NATALIA IVANOVNA KURAKINE Born in Moscow in 1766 to Ivan Sergeevitch Golovine and Catherine Alexeevna, née Princess Galitzine, she was married at the age of nineteen to Prince Alexis Borissovitch Kurakine, by whom she had three children, a son, Boris, and two daughters, Helen and Alexandrina. After the gay life of St. Petersburg, Natalia Ivanovna fell a prey to boredom in her country estate of Kurakino, Orel district, to which her husband had retired. To relieve the tedium, she undertook at least three long journies through Europe, two of nearly 3 years duration, the last from 1529 to 1530. Her husband's death in 1529 hastened her return and she died of cholera in St. Petersburg two years later, being buried beside her husband at Kurakino. The travel diaries which she compiled in French throughout these journies bear witness to a welleducated, if at times naive and frivolous, personality. She appears to have sought out in particular anything with a literary or artistic bearing, and through her diaries we are introduced to some of the leading personalities of her time, including Metternich, Talleyrand and Wellington among the politicians, or Humboldt, Stendhal and Mérimée among the men of science or letters. Artistes also figure in her writings, as for example her great friends Vigée- Lebrun or the singer Catalani, not to mention Liszt, Rossini, and Salieri ; nor were the doors of some of the leading Parisian salons closed to her. In Paris, her greatest passion proved to be the theatre, which she attended almost daily, patronizing such figures as Talma, Mars, and the operas of Grétry, Boieldieu or Rossini. Her diaries convey a tireless determination to savour the life of Paris down to the last drop. She was an artist in her own right, displaying true musical talents and composing more than fifty romances; her musical soirées in St-Petersburg, at which she displayed her talents on the harp and a fine contralto singing voice, were much appreciated. The poet Dimitriev, comparing her to the muse Erato, wrote "I place my lyre at the feet of the Princess, And silent in admiration, I listen to her song." LOUISE-ANGELIQUE COMTESSE DE VINTIMILLE Almost nothing has come to light about her life, although it is recorded that a certain Joseph Joubert corresponded with her between 1506 and 1523, addressing her variously as Madame, Comtesse and Vicomtesse.