Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Hong Kong,the Ritz Carlton Hotel,harbour Room, 3rd Floor, Jun 02, 2007

LOT 17

?Feeding the Ducks? Geneva, No. 1333. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Very fine, 18K gold and painted on enamel, pearl-set pocket watch.

HKD 50,000 - 70,000

USD 6,500 - 9,000 / EUR 5,000 - 7,000

C. Four-body, ?Empire?, spring-loaded back with finely painted on enamel scene of two children, a girl feeding ducks and a boy holding an eager dog in a woodland landscape, pearl-set bezels, the band pearl-set with translucent red enamel over engine-turning. Hinged gilt cuvette. D. Matted gold, engine-turned centre, champlevé radial Roman chapter ring, outer minute dot divisions. Gold ?serpentine? hands. M. 35.3 mm., gilt brass full plate, circular pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring, two-footed cock pierced and engraved, rack and pinion regulator with silver plate. Diam. 45 mm. Property of an Italian Gentleman


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3-55

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-04

Good

HANDS Later

Notes

The present watch is illustrated in the book of the watch collection of Lord Sandberg, pages 328-329 and was previously sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, April 1, 2001, lot 371. This watch is also illustrated in an article "The Influence of Art on Watch Case Design" by Richard Chadwick, Antiquorum, Vox Magazine, Summer 2006, p. 122. A strong tradition of charming rustic scenes painted on enamel was established in Geneva during the first quarter of the 19th Century. The export of watches to China and the east required not only mechanical ingenuity but superb decorative appeal. What particularly appealed to these markets were images of children involved in charming rural pursuits, artists in England such as George Moreland and Francis Wheatley painted scenes of idealized rural English life and were copied via engravings by the Genevoise enamel painters.