The Longitude at the Eve of the Third...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Oct 23, 1999

LOT 38

Dumas, Successeur de Gannery, à St. Nicolas Près Dieppe, No. 442, circa 1860.Fine 49 hour going mahogany marine chronometer with power reserve indicator.

CHF 8,000 - 10,000

Sold: CHF 9,200

C. Three body mahogany box with external handles, glazed upper section the hinged lid with brass corners. Brass bowl and gimballed suspension.D. Silvered with Roman numerals, outer minute ring subsidiary seconds and Up-and-Down sector. Gilt brass Breguet hands. M. Brass full plate with cylindrical pillars secured by screws, fusee with maintaining power, Earnshaw type spring detent escapement, two-arm compensation balance with cylindrical weights and timing screws, free sprung blued steel helical balance spring.Signed on the dial and mahogany box.Dial diam. 80 mm.Dim. 16,5 x 16,5 x 17,5 cm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 4 - 38
Movement: * 4
Dial: 4 - 6 - 01

Notes

This chronometer is a good example of the ultimate development of the Dumas calibre.Henri Motel, (1786-1859). The best known of Berthoud's pupils, Jean-François Henri Motel, was born at Margny-les-Compiegne on 31 December 1786. His father, Louis Nicolas Motel, was both tavern-keeper and farmer. After his preliminary studies, Motel went in 1794 to Prytanée and then to the Ecole des Arts et Métiers at Chalons where he remained as a pensionnaire from year XI until 1 Vendémiaire An XIV (1806) at which date he obtained the qualification of Aspirant by ministerial decision. 7 March 106 he was selected to go to Paris to be instructed at the expense of the government in the art of horology by Louis Berthoud, horloger de la Marine, in accord with the Imperial Decree of 1804 concerning the training of Mécanicien de la Marine.Motel had barely finished his apprenticeship when Berthoud died suddenly, 18 September 1813. His widow appealed to Motel to run the workshop and complete the training of her two sons.On 14 August 1819 Motel married Louise Elisabeth Herbet.He was 33, she was 20.In 1823, Motel, who had only just established himself 12 Rue de l'Abbaye did not participate in the Exhibition of the Products of French industry. He exhibited for the first time in 1827 when the jury awarded him a Silver Medal for his chronometers and astronomical clocks '...none produces horology with greater precision than Mr. Motel'.Henri Motel retired in 1857 to his property of La Chapelle en Serval (l'Oise) where he died 10 November 1859.Literature:J.-C. Sabrier: La Longitude en Mer à l'Heure de Louis Berthoud et Henri Motel, Antiquorum Editions, Genève 1993.