23,000 CHF
Louis Berthoud à Paris, No. 2521, sold to Mr. Blanchard de Pigou, on the 20 March 1791, for 60 Louis. Fine and very rare 18 ct. gold, quarter dumb repeating pocket chronometer. Double body, polished, by Joly (master mark), No. 199 with Paris hallmarks for 1789. White enamel by Morimont (signed on the enamel backing), with Breguet numerals and subsidiary seconds (small hair crack). Blued steel Breguet hands with skeletonised tips. Gilt brass, full plate inverted, with cylindrical pillars secured by screws, fusee with chain and maintaining power, later spring detent escapement, plain brass three-arm balance beneath the dial, flat balance spring with bimetallic compensation curb on the index. Repeating on the case by depressing the pendant. Signed on the dial and back plate. In good condition. Diam. 53 mm. Notes Previously in the the collection of the Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, U.S.A., it is described by Anthony Randall in The Catalogue of Chronometers in the Time Museum,, page 86, entry No. 18. It was sold by Sotheby's in New York on 11 December 1986, lot No. 186. Originally made with the typical Louis Berthoud's pivoted detent escapement, the escapement was replaced by a spring detent escapement toward the middle of the XlXth century, but the original escape wheel was preserved. Founded in 1875 by Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet, both already master watchmakers, as were their fathers and grandfathers, the company's workshops still located on the original site i
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
1994-04-10
