Important Modern and Vintage Timepieces

Hong Kong, Jun 25, 2011

LOT 520

Charles Abraham Bruguier ? The Singing Bird Tab le Box` Charles Abraham Bruguier, Geneva, No. 130. Made circa 1845. Fine and very rare, large, gilt bronze, painted and enamel singing bird box.

HKD 880,000 - 1,300,000

USD 115,000 - 170,000 / EUR 80,000 - 120,000

C. Cast and gilt bronze, the body with pierced and chased scrollwork panels backed by dark blue composition panels and intersected by glazed oval panels containing paintings of flowers, scroll feet, hinged floral cast domed lid with pierced scrolls and set with a large glazed oval panel painted with flowers, the lid opening to reveal the oval hinged singing bird cover decorated with a painted enamel Swiss Alpine scene, the underside painted on enamel with flowers, chased and engraved foliate and flower surround, turquoise button to start the bird mechanism, large, richly colored feathered bird moving the head, beak, tail and wings. M. Massive, rectangular, brass,turned pillars, fusee with chain, cams and flywheel controlling the movement of the bird, large rectangular bellows. Signed and numbered on the movement. Dim 170 x 130 x 120 mm.


LOADING IMAGES
Click to full view
Image
Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-71

Good

ENAMEL AND VARIOUS TYPES OF DECORATION Hairlines
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: -

Notes

Large-size singing bird boxes are extremely rare and were often made for exhibition purposes. The present box is made by one of the best bird-box makers of the 19th century, Charles Abraham Bruguier. In this box, of a much larger size and more impressive than usual, the bird itself is also of a larger size to suit the scale of the box. Charles Abraham Bruguier senior (1788-1862) and Charles Abraham Bruguier the younger (1818- 1891) Charles Bruguier the elder was the son of a clockmaker and became a clockmaker himself. In 1815, he took his family to London, where his son, also named Charles Abraham, was born in 1818. It is apparently only after 1823 and the family?s return to Geneva that Bruguier the elder first began making singing birds. Bruguier the younger is first listed in the 1843 census as having a workshop independent of his father?s, at Terreaux de Chantepoulet 41. Literature: Sharon and Christian Bailly, ?Flights of Fancy, Mechanical Singing Birds?,