Important collector's watches, wristw...

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Apr 13, 2002

LOT 41

This is a typical example of a puritan watch, so named because of the plain aspect of the case and dial, in keeping with the strict code of behavior enforced in England, under the government of Oliver Cromwell, which forbade any open display of wealth. Provenance: Maryatt Collection.

CHF 25,000 - 35,000

EUR 17,000 - 24,000 / USD 15,000 - 21,000

C. Two-body, ?bassine? with deep back, polished, split bezel, small pendant, loose ring. D. Silver, mounted on a heavy hinged brass dial plate, central silver disc with an engraved cherub standing on an hourglass and pointing the hours with an arrow, innermost hour ring with champlevé radial Roman numerals and half hour divisions with inner champlevé red enamel quarter-hour divisions and outer minute divisions with five-minute Arabic figures, then a small brass ring with a pointer indicating date, and outermost champlevé red enamel 31-day date ring. M. 42 mm, gilt brass, pinned to the dial plate, full plate, Egyptian pillars, fusee and cat-gut, short three-wheel train with 5-leaf pinions, verge escapement, circular steel foliot, later irregular cock pierced and engraved with wild strawberries secured by a screw, worm-gear and pinion mainspring set-up with silver scale plate. Signed on the movement. Diam. 52 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3-29

Good

Lacking elements
Movement: 3-22*

Good

Later original

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-01

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

Although the minute hand can be found in 16th century clocks, its application in watches began at about the time this watch was made; only a handful of watches from before 1675 possess a minute hand. The presence of the calendar ring makes the watch very rare indeed. Before this, nothing had been set in the center ? the train ran along its edge, and the motion work had to be arranged differently as it is in this watch: it is driven from the fusee arbor on which what we now call the minute wheel is fixed, with a 24 tooth and 4-leaf brass pinion. It drives a 16-tooth central minute hand wheel (canon pinion). The 32-tooth hour wheel is driven by a 4-leaf minute wheel pinion. The fusee makes 2/3 revolution per hour. The hour wheel and the ?canon pinion? have clutch fixtures allowing for setting the hands Robert Whitwell was apprenticed in 1642 to Robert Grinkin, and became free of the Clockmakers' Company in 1648. Provenance: in 1894 Charles Shapland Collection, in 1929 Marryat Collection. Described and illustrated in ?Old Clocks and Their Makers? by Britten, 3rd edition, 1911, p.224.