Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces.

Geneva, Mar 21, 2020

LOT 11

UNSIGNED, STRIKING CLOCK, BRONZE

CHF 8,000 - 12,000

USD 8,300 - 12,500 / HKD 64,500 - 97,000

Extremely rare and fine ormolu and chiselled gilded bonze, and patinated bronze, 8-day going, key-winding, mantel clock, in the shape of a Restauration architecture, surmounted by characters showing "Atala delivering the Natchez Chactas" stained palm tree, hero of Chateaubriand's novel "Atala", which exalted the fusion of natural innocence and divine grace, with hour and half-hour striking on a bell; the base decorated, in bas-relief, with the Atala's funeral. Silver colour dial with Roman numerals; blued steel "Breguet" hands.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Good

HANDS Original

Brand Unsigned, Paris

Year circa 1820

Caliber brass, circular Paris-type, with two going barrels, anchor escapement, spring suspension and pendulum

Dimensions 38 x 32.5 x 11 cm.

Accessories steel winding-key

Notes

At the end of the 18th century, the craze for exoticism was particularly fashionable in literature, under the impetus of the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712- 1778) who exalts the moral virtues of the return to Nature, through the myth of the “good savage” living in a bucolic paradise not yet perverted by the white conqueror, embodying the impure society of the Enlightenment.
The prodigious literary success of “Paul et Virgine” (1788) by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) - himself subjugated by the “Robinson Crusoe” (1719) by Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731) - gave rise to an irresistible impulse towards sentimental exoticism, just like the novel “Les Incas” (1777) by Jean-François Marmontel (1723- 1799) - published in the midst of the American War of Independence ?? and especially, afterwards, “Atala” (1801) by François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) which brings to its climax the romantic nostalgia of a pagan Eden regenerated by Christianity.