Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 726

Grandmother?s Surprise Attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou, No. 8339. Made in Geneva for the Chinese market, circa 1815. Extremely fine and equally rare, two-train, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set pocket watch with automaton fire and concealed erotic automaton with rare painted figures.

CHF 140,000 - 180,000

USD 130,000 - 170,000 / EUR 90,000 - 115,000

C. Two-body, "Empire", polished, glazed on both sides, the bezels, pendant and bow set with split-pearls, fluted band, the polished concave sections interspersed with panels of six seed pearls each. D. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer dot and star minute divisions, apertures for winding both trains. Gold skeleton hands. Very fine chased and engraved varicolored gold scene applied over a magnificent painted ground depicting a drawing room, with blue walls, green ceiling and red curtains, a portrait on the wall and a mirror over the fireplace, an old lady and cat sitting by a fire with a blued steel grate and automaton fire with reflective gilt backing, a dog opposite sits by a tilted basket of flowers by which lie a hat and cane, an engraved gold curtain rises by a lever under the bezel to reveal an erotic automaton scene with painted male and female figures on a bed. M. 50 mm., gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain for the going train, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance with flat balance spring, the balance pivots with steel endplates, regulation lever in the dial plate, automaton driven by an independent train with going barrel and five-wheel train, eccentrically mounted and adjustable pinion as the governor, driving the automata by means of wheels and pinions. Numbered on the dial plate. Diam. 59 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2

Very good
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

This form of automaton watch with very fine Geneva enamel scene but with almost two-dimensional painted automaton figures is extremely rare and the present watch is in particularly good condition. It can be quite firmly attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou for several reasons; firstly, there are close visual similarities to Gounouilhou?s famous ?kitchen? automaton watches and indeed the chased and engraved gold mounts in the scene are very similar in theme and design, with the old lady by the fire with a dog and cat and overturned basket of flowers (basket of vegetables in the ?kitchen? watches). More importantly, this watch employs a fusee and chain for the going train, rarely found in Swiss watches but always used in Gounouilhou?s known watches. The use of a verge escapement rather than the cylinder is also typical, as is the separately wound train for the automaton rather than it being driven from a repeating mechanism. No more than a dozen automaton watches are attributable to Gounouilhou and the present watch appears to be the only recorded erotic watch attributable to him. A ?kitchen? automaton watch, the movement numbered 8030, was sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, October 19, 2002, lot 130.
Pierre Simon Gounouilhou (1779-1847) Was born in 1779, settled in Geneva (Quai Neuf en l?Isle, No. 241) in 1799. An imaginative maker of great repute, he produced automata and musical objects and watches, ring watches with virgule escapement and quarter-repeating, watches with cases using unusual decorative techniques such as granulation. He left very interesting shop notes with an abundance of information about the habits and customs of early 19th century Geneva watchmakers.