80,500 CHF
Pendule à trois roues. Breguet et Fils, No. 1500, number 1 of a series of 10 made by the workshop of the Musée International d'Horlogerie of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1986, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the invention of Breguet's three-wheel clock. Exceptional and elegant marble and gilt brass eight day going weight-driven three-wheel skeleton table regulator with equation of time, Republican and Gregorian annual calendars and thermometer. Accompanied by glass dome. Black marble rectangular base with canted corners, applied with gilt brass initial "B", gilt brass frame, the front bar engraved with the days of the week, back bar with spring-loaded bracket securing pendulum when moving the clock, gilt brass bun feet. Notes Three-wheel clocks are among the most extraordinary clocks made by Breguet. The records of the House of Breguet list only ten of them during a period of over 40 years. The first one was bought by Breguet himself and given as a present to Laplace, the last one was kept by the Breguet family.Breguet conceived of the idea for the three-wheel clock in July 1787. He deposited the design, in a sealed envelope No. 267, at the Académie Royale des Sciences on February 3, 1788. On December 5, 1881 the envelope was opened at the request of Louis Breguet.The idea of making a clock mechanism with a small number of wheels developed around 1750. In 1751 Lepaute presented a single-wheel clock of his invention to Louis XV. Other watchmakers tried with vary
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-11-16
