500,000 HKD
Ilbery - The Pear Ilbery, London, No. 6141. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Extremely fine and rare, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set, pear-shaped pocket watch with center-seconds and duplex escapement. Two-body, pear-shaped, the bezel set with split-pearls, the band, stem and bow decorated with pale green, blue, white and red champlevé enamel, hinged and sprung scallop-edged back cover set with a finely painted panel of summer flowers and fruit within a gold and enamel wavy-line border. Hinged and sprung gold cuvette overlaid with translucent guilloché scarlet enamel within a gold, white and pale green enamel scalloped border. White enamel with radial Roman numerals and outer minute and seconds divisions, Arabic quarter-hour numerals. Blued steel pierced hands. 45 mm., gilt "Chinese" caliber, entirely foliate chased and engraved, standing barrel, duplex escapement, three-arm gold balance with three steel screws, blued steel flat balance spring, diamond endstone, index regulator. Movement signed. Dim. 63 x 53 mm. excluding pendant. This lot was previously sold by Christie’s Hong Kong, on 31 May 2005, as lot 2128; it was subsequently sold by Antiquorum in April 2006 Notes William Ilbery (?-1839) Active in London from 1780. Following James Cox in London and Jaquet Droz in Switzerland, he specialized in luxury watches made for the Chinese market. His early production was in the English style, with a full plate movement and an English type single wheel d
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2010-10-09
