65,550 CHF
“The Dutch Kitchen” Attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou, No. 28095, Geneva. Made circa 1815. Very fine and very rare, 18K gold and enamel watch with an automaton scene with six actions. Double-body, "Directoire", polished with glazed back. White enamel with Arabic numerals, outer minute track and Arabic quarterhour numerals. Blued steel "ogival" hands. Magnificent varicolored gold automaton scene applied over a finely painted ground depicting a kitchen: a lady at the spinning-wheel sitting by a fire over which two chickens are being roasted, a small child opposite her, above, a dog running in a rotating cage turns the spit, at the right water runs from a fountain, below a dog plays with a cat by a basket of vegetables. 50 mm. (22 1/4’’’), gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance with flat balance spring, regulation lever in the dial plate. Automaton driven by an independent movement with going barrel and five-wheel train, eccentrically mounted and adjustable pinion as the governor, driving the automata by means of cams and levers. Numbered on the pendant. Diam. 58 mm. Notes "The Kitchen" This form of automaton watch appears to have been produced only by Gounouilhou and Dubois & Fils. Those made by Gounouilhou employ fusee and chain, rarely found in Swiss watches, whereas Dubois used a going barrel, and his kitchen was run from the repeating mechanism. Fewer than a dozen "Kitchen" automat
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2005-10-16
