295,000 HKD
“The Musicians” I. D. Piguet & P. Meylan, Geneve, No. 2128. Made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Extremely fine and equally rare, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set, center seconds, quarter-repeating and musical automaton watch with two automata, the musical movement playing on the hour or at will. Three-body, "Empire", the bezels, pendant and bow set with split-pearls, the band set with two lines of seed pearls with a royal blue enamel line between, bolt for activating the music in the band "missing painted on enamel back". Gold, matte, engineturned and polished, radial Roman numerals, outer minute divisions. Blued steel “Breguet” hands. Automaton dial: very finely painted on enamel scene of a garden at a lakeside villa, the Alps in the background, the lower half with applied varicolored gold automaton scene of musicians, a seated lady playing the guitar moves her arm, a seated gentleman playing the lyre moves his arm, the whole on applied gold grass with a sheep suckling a lamb between. Notes On occasion, the back, generally painted on enamel, of the watches with automata made for the Chinese market was replaced with a glass so that the automata could be more easily admired. Piguet & Meylan Piguet & Meylan Both originally from the village of Le Chenit in the Vallée de Joux, Isaac Daniel Piguet (1775-1841) and Philippe Samuel Meylan (1772-1845) came to Geneva as young men, and formed a partnership which lasted from 1811 to 1828. The company specialized in
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-06-02
