905,500 CHF
The AmphoraAttributable to Piguet & Capt, the enamel by the workshop of J-L. Richter, Geneva, circa 1805.Magnificent and extremely rare 18 ct. gold and enamel, pearl-set musical form watch with automaton scene, designed as an amphora. The painted enamel panel below the watch covers a musical automaton scene. The oval watch has a central visible stone-set oscillating balance. The panel shows a mother with her child who is holding grapes, in the manner of Louise Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842). It is hinged so that when a catch is released it rises forwards. A small push on one side of the amphora sets the music and automaton going. A little boy to the left raises and lowers a stick, trying to encourage a dog to jump it. To the rigt, also in vari-coloured gold, is a young lady playing a guitar. The painted background, through which the mechanism is wound, is of a classical urn upon a pedestal within a wooded landscape.Seven rows of graduated pearls run to the base which is decorated in polychrome champlevé enamel. The decoration is repeated on the reverse of the amphora, and the sides have foliate engraving, pearls and polychrome champlevé enamel, some of which is translucent. Graduated pearls decorate the back as well as the front of the handles. An oval painted enamel of a pair of nesting doves within a garland of flowers covers the watch movement. This opens onto the cuvette through which the mechanism isound and set. The panel in the centre below has a pastoral scene of a herdsm
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-03-31
