Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces
Hong Kong, Jul 23, 2020
LOT 69
Unsigned
Coleopterous beetle form-watch; 18K yellow gold, enamel, diamonds and rubies
Coleopterous beetle form-watch; 18K yellow gold, enamel, diamonds and rubies
HKD 100,000 - 120,000
CHF 12,200 - 14,600 / USD 13,000 - 15,600
18K yellow gold, enamel, diamond-set and ruby-set, keyless-winding, form-watch in the shape of a blue coleopterous beetle with concealed dial; the wings set with 14 rose-cut diamonds and the eyes with two rubies.
| Grading System | |
|---|---|
Grade: AAA |
Excellent |
Case: 2 |
Very good |
Movement: 2* |
|
Dial: 2-01 |
Very good HANDS Original |
Brand Unsigned, Geneva
Year circa 1880-1890
Caliber 24 x 20 mm., oval-shaped, gilded brass, going barrel, cylinder escapement, monometallic balance (gilded brass) and blued steel flat hairspring
Dimensions 45 x 25 x 15 mm. (when is close)
Notes
Beetle Form-watches
This kind of fancy watches (“montres de fantaisie”), created from the 1870’s mainly in Geneva, were particularly fashionable at the time of the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition.
As the collections of the Forbidden City of Beijing show, they were also exported to the Chinese market. An almost identical example is preserved there (the wings set with twelve rose-cut diamonds).
Similar watch
• Beijing, Imperial Palace Collections.
Bibliography
• Timepieces in the Imperial Palace, Classics of the Forbidden City, Beijing, The Palace Museum Edition, The Forbidden City Publishing House, 2008, No. 188.
• Chapuis, Alfred (with the collaboration of Loup, Gustave), La montre chinoise, Relations de l’Horlogerie suisse avec la Chine, Paris and Neuchâtel, Editions Attinger Frères, 1919 (XIII-272 pp.), p. 233.
This kind of fancy watches (“montres de fantaisie”), created from the 1870’s mainly in Geneva, were particularly fashionable at the time of the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition.
As the collections of the Forbidden City of Beijing show, they were also exported to the Chinese market. An almost identical example is preserved there (the wings set with twelve rose-cut diamonds).
Similar watch
• Beijing, Imperial Palace Collections.
Bibliography
• Timepieces in the Imperial Palace, Classics of the Forbidden City, Beijing, The Palace Museum Edition, The Forbidden City Publishing House, 2008, No. 188.
• Chapuis, Alfred (with the collaboration of Loup, Gustave), La montre chinoise, Relations de l’Horlogerie suisse avec la Chine, Paris and Neuchâtel, Editions Attinger Frères, 1919 (XIII-272 pp.), p. 233.