Hilaire Bassereau

Hilaire Bassereau, Palais Royal, No. 147, case by Jean Sanguinède, circa 1802.Exceptional and rare large 20 ct. gold repeating musical watch with six tunes and skeletonised movement. Notes Bassereau, Jean-Hilaire (d. 1806)The watch exhibits features that unmistakably show that it was a special piece. The craftsmen chosen for making the different components of the watch were of the highest rank. Lucard, the dial maker, was one of the best. Breguet himself, along with Borel, used him as a maker for his dials. The casemaker, Jean Sanguinede, 39 rue St-Louis, then 18 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris, was one of the best case-makers. He was the main case-maker for Louis Berthoud at the beginning of his career. Then comes theecret signature, which appears to have been reserved by Bassereau only for his very best pieces. Finally, there are the unusual features of the movement: the repeater activation, by a sliding lever on the case, is a predecessor of the later slide activation, for at the time, as a rule, the repeater was activated by depressing the pendant. The suspension of the movement by three bars shows the lengths he went to in order to make the piece one-of-a kind, undoubtedly for an important client.Bassereau was an extraordinary maker, possibly a pupil of Lepine, as a number of his watches strikingly resemble Lepine's in the finish and in the details. He was a very versatile maker, on one hand he made luxurious pieces like the present lot, on the other he made well-done bu