Exceptional Horological Sale Celebrat...

Hotel Noga Hilton, Geneva, Apr 24, 2004

LOT 505

The War Between the Gods and the Titans Ferdinando Garret, London, circa 1620. Highly important, extremely rare gilt brass pre-balance spring, single-hand hour-striking clockwatch with alarm.

CHF 30,000 - 40,000

EUR 19,000 - 25,000 / USD 23,500 - 31,000

Sold: CHF 73,600

C. Two-body, oval, "fermée type", the front engraved with a scene depicting Zeus (Jupiter) fighting the Titans after Joachim Wtewael?s"The Battle Between the Gods and the Titans" painted in 1600, the back with a group of people, inside the front cover a street scene,presumably of London, band pierced and engraved with stylized foliage.D. Silver hour ring with half-hour divisions, inner gilt brassalarm disc with fleur-de-lis hour pointer, blued steel alarm-setting hand, center with inhabited foliage, hounds chasing after a fox anda hare, outer with en suite decoration.M. Oval, 49 x 43 mm, oval, full plate decorated on the periphery with stylized foliage, fusee andgut, verge escapement with circular steel foliot and small irregular pinned cock, pierced and engraved barrels for the striking and alarm,with finely pierced and engraved covers for the stopwork matching decoration of the cock, alarm striking with both sides of


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3 - 15
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Notes

This is one of the earliest known complicated English watches. Watches by Garret are extremely rare. Brian Loomes, in his "Early Clockmakers of Great Britain" (London, 1981), states that very few watches by him are known. The present watch is the most complicated. At an 1849 meeting of the London Archeological Institute, Octavius Morgan showed a watch by Garret from the early Elisabeth period ornamented with a Tudor rose. The British Museum has a simple watch by him in a gilt brass case. Another one, with crystal covers, was in the Maurice Sternberger Collection (sold by Christie?s, London 1937). The only other known Garret watch is mentioned by Britten, quoting the March 29 ? April 1, 1680 London Gazette, which described an octagonal brass watch with silver covers by Garret. Ferdinando Garret Was one of the first known British watch-makers. At that time London watch-makers did not yet have their guild, so he became free of the Grocers? Company by redemption in November 1618. Subse-quently, he was made free of the City of London. In 1622 he was established "in St. Martyns" and had two foreign watch-makers, James Dudwitt and Isaac Perone, working for him. In 1622 Garret was among the petitioners for the establishment of the Clockmaker?s Company. He never joined the new Guild, however, and probably died before 1632 The War Between the Gods and Titans. According to Greek mythology, the Titans ruled the world before being overthrown by the gods of Olympus after a long and difficult struggle. The final battle in the war between the gods and the Titans took place with the assistance of the Hundred-Handers, who kept the Titans under a constant and relentless barrage of rocks, and the Cyclopes, who contributed ligh-tening and thunder to Zeus. The scene on the present watch shows Zeus hurling thunderbolts and overcoming the Titans. Defeated, the Titans were taken down to Tartarus and imprisoned there, and the Hundred-Handers became their jailors. In 1600, about twenty years before this watch was made, Joachim Wtewael painted his famous "Battle Between the Gods and the Titans", which was subsequently reproduced by many engravers, both in part and in its entirety. The engraver who decorated this watch was inspired by one of those engravings.