Important Collectors’ Wristwatches,Po...

New York, Mar 23, 2005

LOT 281

Jacques-Frédéric Houriet, No. 76961. Made circa 1820. Very fine and very rare, 18K pink gold, double-train independent dead center-seconds pocket watch with 12-hour and minute register.

USD 7,000 - 10,000

EUR 5,500 - 8,000

Sold: USD 10,350

C. Four-body, ?Directoire,? solid, entirely engine-turned, case back with monogram, gold hinged cuvette withwinding apertures and inscribed with movement details, ?bombé? crystal. D. ?Guilloché? silver, at 3 Arabicchapter ring for the regular hours and minutes, at 9 Roman chapter ring for the hour and minute register, outerseconds divisions, at 6 subsidiary seconds dial. Blued steel ?fuchsia? hands. M. 23???, frosted gilt, bridge caliber,4 jewels, double barrel with Maltese stopworks, ruby cylinder escapement, gilt 3-arm balance, flat balance-spring,?Parachute? shock-absorber on the top balance pivot, slide button at 6 to activate/deactivate the independentdead center-seconds mechanism controlled by a flirt.Case stamped with Neuchâtel hallmark and French import marks, dial numbered, movement stamped withHouriet?s mark ?HF? on the plate under the dial.Diam. 57 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3 - 11
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 6 - 01

Notes

w w as a remarkable horologist. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Daniel Gagnebin, at Re-nan, and later to the celebrated Abraham-Louis Perrelet, the in-ventor of the self-winding watch. In 1759, at the age of sixteen, he and his elder brother, an engra-ver, moved to Paris. There he worked for Pierre LeRoy, Jean Romilly and Ferdinand Berthoud. Tradition has it that, while in Paris, he became friendly with Breguet, four years his junior. Houriet remained in Paris for nine years and returned to Le Locle full of ideas and ambitions which were to have a profound effect on Neuchâtel valley horology. Along with his brother-in-law, David Courvoisier, Houriet established a company that he directed for years. Shortly after his return to Le Locle, Jürgen Jürgensen came from Copenhagen to work for him, later becoming his agent Scandinavia. In 1796, Jürgensen sent his son Urban to study with Houriet for a year and a half. Urban fell in love with Houriet?s daughter, married her and took her back with him to Copenhagen. In 1768, the year of his return from Paris, Houriet set up Le Locle?s first meridian telescope for exact time observations. For many years, probably from the time of his work with LeRoy and Breguet, he had given thought to the sub-ject of isochronism and had expe-rimented with a variety of forms of the balance-spring. He devised many delicate pieces of appa-ratus to conduct tests on the various prototypes, also inven-ting the spherical spring, which he considered perfect. He inven-ted a bimetallic thermometer. Houriet presented the results of his work to the French Academy of Sciences sometime before 1821. At the 1828 Geneva National Exhibition, Houriet presented two chronometers; one was an anti-magnetic watch which showed no effects from a magnet able to pull over ten kilograms. The other was constructed with a tourbillon regulator. Its whereabouts are unknown, and there is no exact description of it in existence. Antide Janvier, one of the most eminent horological minds of all time, considered Houriet an ?artist worthy of emulation under the double relation of instruction and responsibility.?