Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces...
Hong Kong, Dec 05, 2021
LOT 200
UNSIGNED
Pocket watch à couvercle (with cover); mammoth bone
Pocket watch à couvercle (with cover); mammoth bone
HKD 80,000 - 120,000
EUR 9,000 - 13,500 / CHF 9,500 - 14,200 / USD 10,300 - 15,500
Mammoth bone, hunting-case, key-winding, round-shaped, pocket watch à couvercle (with cover).
Three-piece case, the cover, the case-back and the case-band entirely carved in high-relief.
On the cover, a scene showing Hercules wearing the skin of the Lion of Nemea and holding his olive wood club on his shoulder, standing probably between Omphale and a servant; on the case-back, Judas Iscariot receiving the price of betrayal; on the case-band, a garland of foliage and flowers.
Bone dial with radial Roman numerals, the outer part carved in high-relief with a scene showing a satyr ogling a beautiful nymph lying naked; bone “Poker & Beetle” hands.
Movement 18’’’, full plate, principally made of bone, “Balustre” pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, monometallic balance with three arms (brass) and blued steel flat hairspring, pierced and engraved “Louis XV” continental cock, regulator disc.
| Grading System | |
|---|---|
Grade: AAA |
Excellent |
Case: 3 |
Good |
Movement: 27-3* |
Custom-made Good Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense |
Dial: 27-01 |
Custom-made HANDS Original |
Brand Unsigned, probably central Europe and Germany
Year late-18th century and probably late-19th century
Diameter 54.6 mm
Caliber 18’’’, fusee and chain, verge escapement
Accessories Original winding and setting key (bone and iron)
Notes
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, in Central Europe, a few watches were produced with movements made entirely of bone (with the exception of a few elements made of brass).
Of this production, one watch is known bearing a signature, that of Joh. Zeidler in Kraslice (German: Graslitz), a town in the Sokolov district, in the Karlovy Vary region of the Czech Republic:
· Antiquorum, Geneva, auction, April 18, 1998, lot 332.
Among the other rare examples that have survived, a few watches, unsigned, are listed:
· Antiquorum, Hong Kong, auction, 4 June 1996, lot 414.
· Antiquorum, Geneva, auction, 21 April 1996, lot 346.
The latter was certainly made as a gift for Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s wife, the cock (balance-bridge) being pierced and engraved with her coat-of-arms. The Zeidler watch has a cock with the arms of the Romanovs, the Russian imperial family.
All three watches have very similar gold cases and suggest that they were produced in the same region.
The watch we are proposing today has a movement of the same kind, with a cock in a “Louis XV” spirit. On the other hand, the case of this one lets us glimpse a German realisation of the end of the 19th century in a revival spirit.
In the second half of the 19th century, a few watches with movements also made entirely of bone were produced in Russia. They were the work of the Bronikoff (or Bronnikov) workshop, which also produced numerous watches in boxwood (examples are now kept in various Russian museums and in the collections of the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva and the Das Museum der Zeitnessung Beyer in Zurich).