Important Watches Wristwatches, and C...

The Furama Hotel Hong Kong, Victoriana Room, Jun 05, 2000

LOT 344

Duvivier l?Aîné à Rouen, circa 1765.?Suzanne et les Vieillards?Fine and unusual 18K three-colored gold watch.

HKD 14,400 - 17,600

USD 1,800 - 2,200

C. Double-body, Louis XV, the bezel chased with a formal decoration, the back with a very fine and unusual scene, chased in three colours of gold, featuring ?Susanna and the Elders?. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and outer Arabic minutes ring. Gold Louis XV hands. M. Hinged gilt brass full plate with square baluster pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring, gilt brass continental Louis XV cock with polished-steel end-piece.Signed on the back plate.Diam. 45 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good

Case: 4 - 14
Movement: * 4 - 5
Dial: 4 - 10 - 01

Notes

Varicoloured gold watches made on the Continent during the second half of the 18th century, are usually decorated with symbols of Love and Fidelity or with ornamental military, musical or gardening trophies; a few are chased with flowers or engraved in a basket-work pattern. As opposed to the repoussé watches produced in England at the same period, they are almost never decorated with scenes inspired from the Bible or mythology.François Duvivier, Rouen, was working rue des Charettes from 1745 and later rue Grand Pont, from 1759 to 1764; he used to sign: Duvivier l?Aîné à Rouen.Susanna was a fictional heroine whose innocent virtue triumphed in the end over villainy. She was the wife of a prosperous Jew and was secretly desired by two elders of the community. As she was accustomed to going into her garden to bathe, the elders plotted to seduce her; they hid themselves and waited for her. The two old men sprang out on the naked unsuspecting girl and threatened that unless she gave herself to them both, they would swear publicly that they had seen her in the act of adultey with a young man. Susanna spurned them and cried for help. The old men, thwarted, carried out their threat and Susanna was hauled before a court on the false charge, found guilty and condemned to death. At the eleventh hour, the young Daniel came forward and cross-examined the elders. By the device of separating them from each other, he elicited conflicting evidence, thus proving Susanna?s innocence.