29,500 HKD
“Pocket Chronometer” Will(ia)m Mottu, Geneve. Made for the English market, circa 1850. Fine and rare, 18K gold pocket chronometer with unusual banking for the detent. Four-body, “bassine et filet”, Mastermark “PM”, engine-turned and polished. Hinged gold cuvette. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds. Blued steel “spade” hands. 40 mm, 18’’’, frosted gilt, half-plate, fusee and chain with Harrison’s maintaining power, Earnshaw type chronometer escapement with spring footed detent, spring footed banking arm parallel to the detent, free-sprung cut bimetallic compensation balance with gold temperature and meantime adjustment screws, blued steel helical balance spring, diamond endstone. Dial and movement signed. Diam. 48 mm. Notes A well-known family of watchmakers working in Geneva in the second half of the nineteenth century, known, among other things, for supplying movements to E.J. Dent in London. Ad. Mottu, 131 rue des Etuves. 1830 - 1831, was an eminent finisher and maker of balance- springs. At the Geneva Exposition in 1828 he presented a series of spherical balance-springs, and in 1829 he signed a petition for the construction of a new observatory. "Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois" by Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1998.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-06-02
