Important Collectors' Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Noga Hilton, Oct 16, 2005

LOT 92

?The Music of Love? Attributable to Piguet & Capt, Geneva, No. 1443 for the Chinese Market, circa 1810. Very fine and rare 18K gold and enamel, pearl-set musical snuffbox with automaton scene and built-in centre-seconds watch. To be sold without reserve.

CHF 70,000 - 90,000

EUR 45,000 - 60,000 / USD 58,000 - 75,000

Sold: CHF 149,250

C. Three-body, decorated overall with blue guilloché enamel, the borders with engraved foliage decoration over a green champlevé ground, hinged cover with split-pearl set bezel, disclosing the automaton scene, featuring a couple of four-coloured gold musicians, playing the lyre and the harp, applied on each side of the dial over a finely painted enamel palace interior. Hinged base panel. D. White enamel with Roman numerals and outer minute and seconds ring. Blued steel Breguet hands. M. Brass rectngular, the going train with free standing barrel, cylinder escapement, plain brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring. Pin disc musical train with 21 tuned teeth, driving the automaton movements by means of cams and levers. Dim. 80 x 45 x 20 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-56

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

The present lot was previously sold by Antiquorum Geneva on April 2, 2000, lot 407 Charles-Abraham Bruguier senior (1788-1862) Born on January 5, 1788, in Geneva, he was the son of a clockmaker and became a clockmaker himself. In 1815, Charles-Abraham Bruguier took his family to London, where they lived for several years. Two other children were born in London: Charles-Abraham in 1818, and Louise in 1821. The Bruguier family returned to Switzerland around 1823. Judith, their fourth child, was born in Geneva in 1825. It is apparently only after the return to Geneva, where they first settled in the rue de Coutance 87, that is, after 1823, that Charles-Abraham first began making singing birds. Between 1833 and 1837, Bruguier traveled again, this time to the town of Sainte-Suzanne near Montbéliard in France, to work in the Paur music-box factory (which afterwards became the L?Epée factory). This explains the existence of music boxes with the Bruguier signature. It would seem that Charles-Abraham junior, perhaps then already serving his apprenticeship, did not accompany them, for he is not mentioned in the passport application, which says only ?destination Montbéliard, with his wife and three daughters?. In 1837, the Bruguier family returned once again to Geneva, living first in the rue du Cendrier 121 bis and moving the following year to rue Coutance 75. After 1843, Bruguier senior, having acquired property in Grand-Pré (north of Geneva), transferred his workshop there. Charles Abraham Bruguier senior died in June 1862, at 74 years of age. The elder Bruguier is known for his bird boxes, but he made other kinds of pieces as well, even quite unusual ones such as these cited by his grandson Jacques-Alexandre: ?a clock surmounted by a vase, in the center of which a rose opens up on the hour. Out of this rose comes a hummingbird which sings and flies back to where it came from, whereupon the rose closes again.? Or, ?a flute player leaning against a tree. He plays, every movement of his fingers corresponding to a note. A small bird appears and sings, and the man puts down his flute and turns his head to listen. A cat suddenly appears and pounces on the bird just as it finishes its song, but the bird disappears and the man begins playing again.?