34,500 CHF
A Monsieur le Comte de Noailles Breguet et Fils, No. 4156, sold to the Comte de Noailles on May 24, 1824 for 3,150 francs. Very fine and rare, small 18K gold and silver pocket watch with jump-hour hand and half quarter- repeating. Four-body, by master casemaker Tavernier, "forme quatre baguettes", gold with silver band, the whole engine-turned, the back engraved with the Count de Noailles’ coat of arms, gold cuvette with bayonette fixing. Silver, by Tavernier, champlevé radial Roman numerals, outer minute dot divisions, engine-turned center, sunk subsidiary seconds between V and VI. Gold Breguet hands. Notes The difference between the cost of a watch with a regular-sized movement and one with a small one was surprisingly great. Only the wealthiest could afford to purchase a small watch. The present watch cost about 40 percent more than an ordinary repeater, due to its small size and high finish- it is jeweled to the center, has a jump hour-hand, and the best possible repetition system for the time. Antonin Claude Dominique de Noailles (1777-1846) Count de Noailles, Prince-Duc de Poix, Duc de Mouchy, “pair de France”, and a Spanish grandee in 1834, he was a Minister of Louis XVIII. On April 11, 1803, he married Melanie de Talleyrand-Perigord, a niece of the famous Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, Minister of Foreign Affairs under Napoleon and Louis XVIII.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2004-11-14
