Important Collectors' Watches, Pocket...

Geneva, Mar 16, 2008

LOT 490

Prince Albert Lorgnette Attributed to J. Rossel & Fils à Genève. Made circa 1850. Fine, 18K gold and enamel, rose diamond-set folding lorgnette with concealed painted on enamel portrait miniature of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, later HRH The Prince Consort (1819-1861).

CHF 4,000 - 6,000

USD 3,600 - 5,400 / EUR 2,500 - 3,700

Sold: CHF 9,360

C. Spring-loaded front cover decorated with a rose diamond-set flower-spray on a translucent Imperial blue guilloche enamel ground, opening to reveal a painted on enamel portrait of Prince Albert in military uniform and wearing the Garter sash, back and handle engraved with foliage against an engine-turned background, folding lorgnettes released by a catch on the side of the handle. Dim. 85 x 24 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3

Good

Notes

J. Rossel & Fils Formerly the long established firm of J. F. Bautte & Cie, founded in 1790. Rossel signed ?Successors to J.F. Bautte a Genève? between 1860 and 1883. The company won First Class medals at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and Paris 1855.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Francis Albert Charles Augustus Emanuel, later HRH The Prince Consort, 1819-1861, was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was the only husband of a British Queen to have formally held the title of Prince Consort. Upon Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the dynastic branch of the Saxon ducal family to which Albert belonged, succeeded the House of Hanover on the British throne. See: ?Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois?, Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, 1998, pp. 353.