Important Collectors' Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Noga Hilton, Oct 16, 2005

LOT 43

?La Forge de Cupidon? Des Arts & Compagnie, Geneva. Made circa 1800. Very fine and rare, 18K gold and painted on enamel double-face pocket watch with automaton scene, quarter repeating on a bell incorporated within the movement.

CHF 38,000 - 48,000

EUR 25,000 - 30,000 / USD 30,000 - 40,000

Sold: CHF 65,550

C. Two-body, ?Directoire?, polished, glazed back. D. White enamel with Arabic numerals, outer minute track and Arabic quarter hour numerals. Pierced gold hands. Automaton dial finely painted on enamel with a Swiss landscape, the vari-coloured chased gold automata comprising two Martin-Martine type jacks in 18th Century costume appearing to strike the hours and the quarters on two bells above, two cherubs between forging the weapons of Venus, grassy foreground with a sleeping dog, the automata driven by the repeating work. M. Gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, going barrel, cylinder escapement, plain brass three-arm balance beneath he dial, flat balance spring, repeating on two bells situated between the plates activated by depressing the pendant, milled regulation wheel in the dial plate. Dial signed. Diam. 54 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3-6-11

Good

Slightly oxidized

Slightly worn
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

This type of movement was also used by Genevan watchmakers such as Chevalier & Cochet, Moricand, Jacques Patron, and others. Des Arts & Cie Watchmakers at the end of the 18th Century and the first quarter of the 19th Century producing repeating and automaton watches. See: Osvaldo Patrizzi, ?Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois?, Antiquorum Editions, p. 160.