55,200 CHF
A la Comtesse d'Osmond Watch No. 3043, sold on 23 March 1818, for the sum of 1800 Francs. Gold hunting-cased watch with quarterrepeating. Notes Note: This watch bears comparison with lot 36 ( watch No. 3388, sold on 29 August 1821). Although the layout of the train is similar, there are considerable differences, the latter being of much thinner caliber and very definitely superior in quality as would be expected of a Premiere Classe watch. Typical of French hunting-cased watches of the period, the XII is adjacent to the pendant, although in the case of this lot there is no seconds hand and the repeating piston is mounted in the band. MARQUISE D'OSMOND Extracts from Les Salons d'Autrefois by Madame la Comtesse de Bassanville (in translation). "Mademoiselle Destillères was not pretty, indeed she was somewhat ugly, but she had a lot of wit, of tact and was favoured with remarkable good sense. Having money and a desire to acquire a title, she married the Marquis d'Osmond, a young beau of the time, utterly without fortune, but well endowed with debts." Her father, Monsieur Destillères, was a businessman and one of the principal members of the la bande noire, who had come up to Paris in 1789. On his death, around 1820, he was able to leave his daughter an annual income of 8 thousand pounds. The salon of the Marquise d'Osmond was located opposite the Rue de la Paix in Paris. The coup d'état in the late 1820's forced her to move to Florence. " Madame d'Osmond had fo
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
1991-04-14
