515,000 HKD
Isaac Daniel Piguet, Geneve, circa 1800. Very fine, rare and important 18K gold and enamel pearl-set keyless musical automaton ring in original morocco fitted box. Rectangular top with canted corners, half pearl-set bezel, lightly engraved flat band and back with a slot for winding lever, fluted shank extending at the top.The top of the ring rectangular with canted corners, three-colored gold animated scene depicting a lady playing a harp, both hands moving on both sides of the strings, applied on finely painted and overglazed enamel panel with a garden and classical ruins in the background. M. Rectangular with canted corners, 27.4 x 14.4 mm., brass ful plate, pinned drum with five tuned teeth, rack winding, six-wheel train, last pinion in eccentric bushing for tempo control, automaton driven from a spring-loaded lever acting on pentagonal cam fixed to the first wheel arbor (after the pinned barrel).Signed on the movement in a manner typical of I . Notes This ring is a very early example of the use of the invention of a "carillon without hammers or bells", presented by Antoine Favre (1734-1820) to the Geneva Société des Arts on February 15, 1796. This invention, which produced mechanical music without bells or gongs, by means of tuned steel blades, was to revolutionize musical horology and the making of objects of vertu in Geneva. The miniaturization achieved due to Favre's invention was very important, for at the time the city was under an embrgo of English products,
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2002-06-08
