$11,210
Attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou, Geneva. Made circa 1820. Very fine, octagonal, 18K yellow gold and pearl-set ring watch with visible rose diamond-set balance. Rectangular with canted corners, the top housing the watch, screwed pearl-set bezel, polished sliding panel at the bottom to reveal the winding, setting and regulating holes, hinged shank with solid extended triangular ends. Rectangular with canted corners, translucent dark blue enamel plate decorated with gold scrolls, upper white enamel subsidiary seconds dial, aperture for the balance spinning against a polished blued steel plate, in the lower part small white unusually positioned enamel dial with Arabic numerals and outer minute divisions. Blued steel "spade" hands. 27 x 14 mm., brass, rectangular with canted corners, fixed barrel, cylinder escapement, plain diamond-set balance with 5 arms, flat balance spring. Dim. 31 x 18 mm. Notes Pierre-Simon Gounouilhou (1779-1847). He was born in Bergerac en Dordogne, France, in 1779, and died in 1847 in Peissy, Satigny. A Master watchmaker, he was from a French Protestant family and came to Geneva as an apprentice in 1799, living at Quai Neuf en l’Isle, No. 241, and being received "bourgeois" in 1823. He began his career as a maker of automaton and musical objects and watches, including one representing a kitchen with Jaquemarts, ring watches with virgule escapement and quarter-repeating, and watches with cases using unusual decorative techniques such as gra
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2006-12-07
