187,000 CHF
“Comte d’Otrante” Breguet, Hor. ger de la Marine Royale, No. 3455, case No. 2357. Repetition à Ponts, sold to the Comte d’Otrante on July 1, 1820, for 2110 Francs. Very fine and very rare, 18K gold jump hour half-quarter repeating pocket watch with ruby cylinder escapement and eccentric seconds. Four-body, “Empire” by Joly, engine turned. Hinged gold cuvette. Silver, engineturned, brushed chapter ring with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track with dot markers, eccentric subsidiary seconds between 5 and 6. Blued steel Breguet hands. 52 mm., frosted gilt, souscription caliber, standing barrel, jeweled train, overhanging ruby cylinder escapement with polished steel escape wheel, three-arm brass balance, the top pivot with pare-chute, flat blued steel balance spring, bimetallic temperature compensation curb fitted to the index regulator, repeating with a single hammer on a gong activated by a pull-and-twist piston in the band between 1 and 2. Dial and cuvette signed. Case with Joly’s mark, case and reverse of dial punch numbered. Diam. 56 mm. Notes Joseph Fouché (1763-1820) French statesman and head of internal security under Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Fouché had been a Jacobin member of the Convention, Fouche voted for the death of Louis XVI and later became politically more conservative when he sensed it was opportune. In 1799, Fouche became Minister of Police. He supported Napoleon’s coming to power in the coup of Brumaire. Nevertheless, Bonaparte mistrusted Fouché a
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2006-04-02
