Important Watches, Wristwatches, Cloc...
Basel April 21, 1990, Apr 21, 1990
LOT 174
Henry Debary, Geneva, circa 1710. Very fine and rare silver pair cased watch with a visible enamel cock and mock pendulum.
CHF 30,000 - 40,000
Double body polished outer and inner cases. Silver champleve dial with Roman numerals and outer Arabic minute ring. Blued steel "poker and beetle" hands. Gilt brass full plate movement with Egyptian pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain steel three armed balance, very fine enamel cock with the extremely fine painted portrait of a noble man, a blued steel mock pendulum in the form of a fly, oscillating above his head. Signed on the dial and the back plate. In very good condition. Diam. 59 mm.
Notes
Due to its quality, in our opinion, the painting on the cock
must be the actual portrait of an important personality.
Three other watches of this type are known, all made by
the same maker. One is in the M.I.H. of La Chaux de
Fonds, with the portrait of Peter Tolstoi, minister of Pe-ter
the great; the second was in the Wuppertaler Uhrenmuseum
and is illustrated by Abeler in the book he published
in 1971; the third is in the British Museum.