Collector's Pocket Watches, Wristwatc...

Noga Hilton, Geneva, Apr 12, 2003

LOT 372

Diamond-set WheelUnsigned, Swiss, circa 1810, made for the Chinese market.Fine and very rare 18K pink gold, center dead seconds watch with Pouzait escapement, date, eccentric dial and diamond-set balance.

CHF 16,000 - 19,000

EUR 11,000 - 13,000 / USD 12,000 - 14,000

Sold: CHF 18,400

C.Two-body, Directoire, glazed on both sides. D. White flat enamel, radial Roman chapter set at the lower part with outer minute divisions, winding aperture, date sub-dial at 12 o'clock, center seconds with outermost division and 15-second Arabic markers. Gold "beetle and poker" hands. M. 50 mm., gilt brass full plate, fixed barrel, slow-beat Pouzzait lever escapement with large diamond-set balance with four spiral arms set in the center of the back plate, large safety roller acting on a singlepin set on one of the arms and acting on inside and outside walls depending on whether the entry or exit pallet is engaged, small lever protruding at 3 o'clock to stop the watch.Diam. 58mm.


LOADING IMAGES
Click to full view
Image
Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3
Movement: 3*
Dial: 2 - 01

Notes

Pouzait (also Pouzzait or Puzait). (1743-1793)In 1786 Jean Moyse Pouzait presented a model of his lever escapement to the Geneva Society of Arts. The idea seems to derive from the pin-wheel escapement in clocks and as in pin-wheel there was no safety action (later ones, including these two, have the safety action). There are some differences, Pouzait's pallets being not just pins, but small pin-like rectangular teeth, so that this is in fact an escapement with divided lift. Pouzait, who eleven years earlier had invented the independent secods mechanism, possibly wanted to make a simpler dead seconds mechanism. Whatever his motives were, he was one of the first to introduce the lever escapement to the Continent.Dictionnaire des horlogers genevois, by Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, 1998.