446,250 CHF
Unsigned, Swiss, circa 1820. Important and extremely rare large 18ct. gold, enamel and pearl-set 'Moses' automaton watch with Jacquemart quarter-repeating. Three body, massive, polished with turned bezels. Hinged gilt-metal cuvette. Small eccentric white enamel with Arabic chapters and minute divisions. Gold spear pattern hands. A. Gold plate finely enamelled with the people of Israel, the all-seeing eye of God in the background in opalescent gold, with applied raised varicoloured gold plate chased with rocks, foliage and figures of Moses and five supplicants, a cave below revealing a further plate decorated in enamel and engraved gold with applied gold cherub jacks flanking an alter to Love. Frosted and gilt full-plate with goingbarrel, cylinder escapement, plain three-arm balance with flat balance spring. Skeletonised polished steel continental cock. Quarter-repeating on two visible gongs with highly polished steel-work visible on the backplate, by depressing the pendant, the automaton train also wound from the pendant by means of a displacement slide in the band of the case. Steel pendant locking button. In excellent condition, with gold and enamel key and fitted tooled leather case Diam. 67 mm. Estimate: SFr. * * * Notes Provenance: Eli Collection, sold at auction by Ineichen, Zurich, lst. June 1972, lot 130 Literature: A. Chapuis, Les Automates, Neuchatel, 1949, p. 188, fig. 213, 214, for a similar watch in the Sandoz Collection. The 'Moses 'automata has always Read more…
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
1992-10-17
