S. Smith & Son The leading London firm for high quality and complicated watches at the end of the 19th Century and during the opening decades of the 20th, was founded by Samuel Smith, jeweler and watchmaker, c. 1851. Watches were made for him by Nicole Nielsen. Alongside the wide range of civilian watches and clocks, Smith's also made chronometers which performed well and made the firm a supplier to the Admiralty. Under the guidance of Herbert S.A. Smith, the firm developed into a large manufacturing company with its own research laboratories, the family succession being continued a further generation by Sir Alan Herbert Smith, with the company going on to make automobile and aircraft instruments alongside clocks and watches. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a period of general decline for British horology, a few British watchmakers created magnificent, ultra-complicated watches, as if to say to the world "look, we are still the best". Some were made in collaboration with the best Swiss watch companies. These watchmakers were three from London: Charles Frodsham, Edward John Dent, and Samuel Smith, and one from Coventry: J. W. Player. The present watch stands out, even among all British Grand Complication watches of the 20th century. Its dial is perhaps the most extraordinary work ever done by the famous British dialmaker Willis. His dials are always exceptional. This one, however, made of ten pieces of gold and enamel, is the most unusual of all that are known. By combining yellow gold and white and blue enamel, Willis was able to create a remarkably attractive, elegant and delicate dial. It can only be compared to the dial of what is considered to be the most complicated English watch, the Player (No. 1 in the list below), which has an outermost gold date ring. The movement is equally exceptional. It is large, 61 mm, with a very cleverly designed mechanism, which often utilizes the same arbor in the cadrature (the complicated under-dial mechanism) for two functions, and is finished with the utmost attention to detail. Some of the solutions, although known before, employ innovative ideas. Thus, the mechanism that disengages the striking while setting the watch is planned in a simple and at the same very secure manner; the same can be said for the up-and-down mechanism. Examples of the most complicated English watches: * Player & Son, circa 1908 (private collection) * Dent No. 32573, made in 1904 (sold Antiquorum, Basel, April 21, 1990, lot 485). * S. Smith & Sons, No. 148, circa 1918 (whereabouts unknown) * Smith No. 309-2, made in or before 1903 (this lot) * Frodsham, No. 09572, circa 1915 and 09642, circa 1917 The Philosophy Behind Complicated Watches. Complex machines and devices are so much a part of our daily lives that we tend to take them for granted. Yet, the idea of "complication", when one stops to think about it, is a fascinating one. What is it that drives mankind to search, to invent and to experiment so tirelessly, in order to do better and go farther than others have before ? Some might say the reason is tied to the desire to comprehend the world and to master natural forces, others might consider that it is man?s natural competitiveness. The search for ever-greater complication is, after all, a kind of race, with each contestant seeking to do better than his fellow runners. Or is the search for complication a kind of sublime expression of the survival instinct? The first step in a long history of horological complications was no doubt taken when the mechanical timekeeper was invented in the 13th century, in an attempt to simulate, by means of a mechanical device, the periodic nature of the world we live in. The alarm was later added to these timekeepers, a sort of automated rooster, but which could be controlled and "programmed". Early clocks were a way of measuring the basic rhythms of life, as set by the sun. An additional "complication" came into the picture when horologists began seeking to create models of the heavens, illustrating the rotation of the earth on its axis, and the rotation of the Moon and its revolution around the Earth -- the phases of the moon. Once the basics of the periodic movements of the Earth and the Moon had been mastered, in the clock with moon phases, clockmakers attempted to create a model of the entire system known to them. During the first half of the 14th century, Roger Stroke built a complicated astronomical clock for Norwich Cathedral (1321-1325). In 1364, Giovanni de? Dondi constructed a clock, the "Astrario", which became the marvel of his times and was to remain the most complicated one for centuries, featuring the movements of the five planets then known. These clocks were very large; a new challenge was soon found, in the form of miniaturisation. Smaller clocks could be placed in the home; with the advent of portable clocks, they could even be taken outside of the home. This advance was one of the factors in the growing familiarization with the universe as it was then understood. Models which mechanically reproduced the movements of the planets and the sun, could be transported; the knowledge they represented was no longer restricted only to astronomers. In the late 15th century, miniaturization was carried even further, as clocks were made small enough to be worn on the person, leading to the development of the pendant watch and the pocket watch. It became an intense challenge during the 20th century, as horologists vied with each other to create ever more perfect and smaller versions of the tourbillon mechanism, simple yet so difficult to make well. Manufacturers rivalled with one another to create pieces with complications never seen before and to combine the greatest number of complications possible. Watch owners also competed, as is shown by the rivalry between James Ward Packard and Henry Graves, Jr., which happily led to the creation of the watch that is now simply called the "Graves Supercom-plication". During the last 20 years, the desire to make ultra-complicated watches has been re-kindled, with the "Calibre 89", the "Star Calibre 2000", Gérald Genta?s "Wrist Supercomplications", and most recently, the "Sky Moon Tourbillon".