Antiquorum in Love, Impotant Horology...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Nov 16, 1997

LOT 11

Joseph Silver, London, No. 465, made for the Eastern Market, circa 1780. "Eloise et Abelard" Very fine gilt brass and enamel pair cased paste set coach watch with alarm.

CHF 15,000 - 17,000

USD 10,000 - 11,800

C. Double body outer, the bezel pierced and engraved with foliage, the border set with alternate white and red stones, the back centred with a very fine enamel panel painted with a scene depicting a scene drawn from "Eloise and Abelard", paste set frame and outer pierced and engraved decoration matching that of the bezel. Inner double body bassine, the back engraved with a branch of flowers, the band pierced and engraved with foliage. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and outer Arabic minute ring. Gold "poker and beetle" hands. M. Hinged gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain to the going train, verge escapement, plain steel three-arm balance, flat balance spring, gilt brass English cock with diamond end-stone. Alarm train with fixed barrel, striking on a bell. Signed on the back plate. Diam. 91 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: A

Good

Case: 4-19

Fair

Dent(s)

Movement: 2

Very good

Dial: 23-51

Later

Partially reprinted

Notes

Heloise and Abelard One of the most famous medieval love stories which has inspired many literary works. Heloise was born in France in 1101 and was brought up by her uncle, Fulbert, canon of Notre Dame. He sent her to a nunnery at Argenteuil and later lived in his house in Paris. Abelard met her when she was seventeen ?not lowest in beauty, but in literary culture highest?. Abelard was a theologian and philosopher best known for his solution for the universals and his original use of dialectics. Fulbert entrusted Abelard with the education of his brilliant niece (c. 1118). The two fell in love and were secretly married after Heloise returned to Paris from Brittany, where she had given birth to Abelard's son, Astralabe. Her relatives outraged by the situation caused Abelard to be attacked and castrated. He became a monk at the monastery of Saint Denis and Heloise entered the convent at Argenteuil. After the convent dispersed, Abelard gave Heloise and her nuns the property of the community of the Paraclete which he had been allowed to found. There Heloise became abbess. Abelard became the abbot of the new community and provided it with a rule and with a justification of the nun's way of life. In this he emphasized the virtue of literary study. In the early 1130s he and Heloise composed a collection of their own love letters and religious correspondence. It reveals Heloise's brilliant mind, her noble, passionate and unselfish nature and her great learning. This correspondence between her and Abelard became part of the extensive literature about this relation. Heloise was buried beside Abelard at the Paraclete, but the remains of both were removed to the Pere t,achaise cemetery in Paris in the 19th century.