773,500 CHF
Amor seduces Innocence. Piguet & Meylan, Geneva, No. 7509 and 7624, circa 1820.Magnificent and rare, asymmetrically painted pair of 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set, centre-seconds, quarter repeating watches, with polished steel movements and special escapements. Notes Watches of such exceptional quality with polished steel movements and repeating mounted on the back plate are extremely rare and appear only to have been made by Piguet Lot Meylan. The choice of making movements in blued and mirror-polished steel, even if it was far more costly to execute, was due to the greater resistance of steel to humidity and oxidisation, which was an important factor in watches destined for the Chinese market.Many of the watches and singing bird boxes or automaton snuff boxes destined for the Chinese market were made as pairs, with symmetrically or asymmetrically painted scenes. The few that survived did so as single timepieces rather than as pairs, making this lot one of the very few still surviving together.Piguet Lot MeylanFor a biography, see page 224
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-03-31