Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces

Geneva, May 13, 2012

LOT 371

SPECIAL ESCAPEMENT, QUARTER REPEATER Père Bouhelier, No. 715. Made circa 1830. Very fine and rare, 18K gold, quarter-repeating pocket watch with special lever escapement.

CHF 2,500 - 4,500

USD 2,700 - 5,000 / EUR 2,000 - 3,700

Sold: CHF 8,125

C. Four-body, ?bassine et fi lets?, engine-turned and polished, the back with small monogram ?AR?, engine-turned band. Hinged gilt metal cuvette engraved with the technical details. D. Engine-turned silver with radial champlevé Roman numerals, outer minute divisions. Gold Breguet hands. M. 48 mm., frosted gilt, 12 jewels, standing barrel, special polished steel lateral lever escapement with elongated lever arm, the fork engaging a locking pin on the balance pivot, polished steel three-arm balance with blued steel laminae on the upper surface, blued steel fl at balance spring, index regulator, repeating with two massive polished steel hammers on two gongs activated by a pull-and-twist piston in the pendant, polished steel repeating work under the dial. Cuvette signed. Diam. 53 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2*

Very good

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

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

Père Bouhelier A native of Saint Julien, a small village near Charquemont, in Franche Comte, where his surname was very common. Although mostly farmers, the population made cylinder escapements in winter-time, for both the French and the Swiss makers. It is interesting to note that the few watches known from this maker are all constructed with this very unusual calibre and all set with the same type of straight-line lever escapement. Very few watches made by Père Bouhelier are known to exist. Two were discussed in Horlogerie Ancienne, bulletin of the A.N.C.1--I. A. Two others were sold by Antiquorum, Geneva: October 12, 1996, lot 239; May 14, 2006, lot 611. These watches were made with a very special primitive calibre, each of special design. It was diffi cult to decide whether he was ahead of his time, technologically speaking, or behind. As Père Bouhelier was a priest who emigrated to England during the French Revolution, it is most likely that he learned how to make the lever escapements during his enforced exile based on his own trial and error.