16,100 HKD
HeliosCourvoisier Frères, La Chaux-de-Fonds, No. 47138, circa 1820.Fine 18K gold quarter-repeating watch with special dial. Four-body, "Empire", engine-turned back cover, reeded band, spring-loaded, hinged gilt cuvette. Gold, center with chased Helios in his chariot drawn by four horses, applied gold Roman numerals, outer minute divisions, matte ground. Blued steel Breguet hands. 52 mm., gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring, continental cock.Signed on the cuvette and movement.Diam. 55 mm. Notes The figure in the chariot represents Helios, the Sun, who drives his chariot across the sky every day to warm the Earth. In the modern pictorial tradition Apollo, the incarnation of ideal beauty, eternally youthful, is identified with the Sun, whose chariot he drives, as pictured, for example, in the Gallery of Apollo at Versailles.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2002-06-08