97,000 CHF
Unsigned, German, possibly Strasburg, circa 1570. Highly important, rare gilt bronze, tambour-shaped pre balance spring, single hand pendant watch with iron movement, double fusee, foliot and hog's bristle regulator in leather fitted box. Two-body, drum-shaped, hinged front cover, fixed back, identical front and back pierced with 12 openings for the hours in the front and for the sound in the back, the centers pierced and engraved with Moresque pattern, the edges with repeated engraving, the band pierced and engraved with strap-work, small ring pendant, hook locking. Hinged, gilt metal, the edge with twelve touch studs, the hour chapter ring with radial Roman numerals from I to XII, an inner ring with Arabic numerals from 1to 24 with a Z in place of 2. The center engraved with wind rose and sun rays. Single blued iron arrow hand. Notes The earliest timekeepers powered by a coiled mainspring date from the late 15th century but neither the remnants that have survived, nor the written sources, give precise information as to when the first portable timepiece was made and by whom. The same is true of the history of the fusee, as is illustrated by the present lot. There is a general consensus that the oldest surviving clock with fusee is the one belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, made before 1518 by Jacob Zech, a Bohemian clocmaker from Prague, for the Polish king Sigmund the Great. The fusee, one of two major power-equalizing devices, had been known for at least half a Read more…
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2002-11-16
