104,700 CHF
Views of Switzerland. Charles Abraham Bruguier, Geneva, enamel attributed to Louis Dufaux père, 1840s, made for the Italian market. Exceptional gold, marble, mother-of-pearl and painted on enamel, ruby- and emerald-set musical singing bird box in the form of a paperweight. Accompanied by later leather fitted box 60 x 48 mm, brass, fusee and chain, the bird rotating right and left and moving its beak, tail, and wings, the melody, and circular bellows controlled by a stack of eight spring-loaded cams moving vertically along their arbor for a long duration of song, the shifting facilitated by an L-shaped lever pushing the cams down via a cam set on the extension of the 2nd whel, fly regulator on a worm-gear with fixed weights on each wing, the movements of the bird are controlled by an unusual and complex mechanism consisting of two fusee-like chains going through the handle.Punched on the movement with three tulips.Dim: Height 115 mm, base 125 x 102 mm. Notes Charles-Abraham Bruguier senior (1788-1862). Born on January 5, 1788, in Geneva, he was the son of a clockmaker and became a clockmaker himself. In 1815, Charles-Abraham Bruguier took his family to London, where they lived for several years. Two other children were born in London: Charles-Abraham in 1818, and Louise in 1821. The Bruguier family returned to Switzerland around 1823. Judith, their fourth child, was born in Geneva in 1825. It is apparently only after the return to Geneva, where they first settled in the
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-10-11
