100,300 CHF
“Pour Son Altesse Royale le Duc d’Angoulême” Breguet, No. 168, sold to the Duc d’Angoulême on March 27, 1838, for 1,800 Francs. Very fine and extremely rare, 18K gold and platinum "répétition à ponts", with quarter repeating and a short gold Breguet chain and ratchet key. Four-body, "forme quatre baguettes", No. 498, by Joly (master mark), engine-turned. Dedicated gold cuvette secured by a screw, apertures for the winding and the regulator. Silver, engine-turned, brushed chapter ring with radial Roman numerals, outer minute chapter with dot indexes. Blued steel "Breguet" hands. Notes A Breguet quarter-repeating watch with two hammers was more expensive than the more usual one-hammer type; it is specifically noted in the ledgers as “répétition à ponts à 2 marteaux”. For a note on the use of platinum in watches and another Breguet platinum watch, No. 3537, see: Antiquorum, Genève, October 14 & 15, 2006, p. 54-57. The cuvette of this watch is inscribed: “Donné a Mr le Bon. Albert de Pichon Longueville, Par Son Altesse Royale Monseigneur le Duc D’Angoulême, 1814”. Albert de Pichon Longueville, a fervent royalist, was among the delegation welcoming the duc d'Angoulème to Bordeaux. He was an active supporter of the Bourbon restoration. It is likely that the duc d'Angoulème had the date 1814 engraved on the watch in souvenir of Pichon-Longueville’s fidelity to the royal cause. The watch had several owners via the Breguet atelier; it first appears in ledger No. 1 as No.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2006-11-12
