Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, Collector’s Watches

Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, Collector’s Watches

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 62. A Verge Watch Movement In Later Silver And Rock Crystal Scallop-Form Case, Movement Circa 1640, Case 19th Century.

Gribelin, Blois

A Verge Watch Movement In Later Silver And Rock Crystal Scallop-Form Case, Movement Circa 1640, Case 19th Century

Lot Closed

April 14, 10:02 AM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Gribelin, Blois

A Verge Watch Movement In Later Silver And Rock Crystal Scallop-Form Case,

Movement Circa 1640, Case 19th Century


• Movement: gilded full plate, verge escapement, screwed-on balance cock and foot decoratively pierced and engraved with scrolling flowers and foliage, plain flat steel balance, wheel and click set-up, fusee and gut line, turned baluster pillars, signed Gribelin, Blois

• Dial: silver, Roman numerals with half hour divisions between and quarter hours beneath, gilded centre with pierced and engraved scene depicting Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the serpent offering Eve an apple from the tree of life, the whole surrounded by scrolling foliage, hand lacking

• Case:later (19th century) engraved silver bezels, rock crystal covers of scallop-form, the front with radiating facets, the radiating sections to the back separated by grooves, deep plain pendant, long turned terminal

length including pendant 60mm, width 41.5mm

Tardy's listing of the Gribelin family in his Dictionnaire des Horlogers Français notes that Simon Gribelin was active in Blois from 1588 and died after 1633. Simon's son Abraham, born in 1589 succeeded his father to the position of clockmaker to the King. Abraham had 15 children and died in 1671 at the age of 82. It is probable that it was Abraham who was the maker of the movement of this watch. Abraham's legacy was continued by Nicholas, his son, who was born in Blois in 1637 and became clockmaker to the Dauphin in Paris in 1674. Watches signed by the Gribelins may be found in the collections of the British Museum, Ashmolean and Victoria & Albert Museum. The rock crystal case of this watch together with its silver mounts most likely date to the 19th century, but they are in the style of the mid-17th century.