Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1388. A fine and rare gold and enamel quarter repeating watch with musical automaton work attributed to Henry Capt, playing on the hour or at will, made for the Chinese market Circa 1815, no. 20935.

Roman Bordier & Cie.

A fine and rare gold and enamel quarter repeating watch with musical automaton work attributed to Henry Capt, playing on the hour or at will, made for the Chinese market Circa 1815, no. 20935

VAT applies to hammer price and buyer's premium

Auction Closed

May 14, 02:23 PM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 CHF

Lot Details

Description

Roman Bordier & Cie.

A fine and rare gold and enamel quarter repeating watch with musical automaton work attributed to Henry Capt, playing on the hour or at will, made for the Chinese market

Circa 1815, no. 20935

• Movement: gilded, cylinder escapement, plain three-arm balance, standing barrels for going and musical trains, pinned barrel for music plucked by 6 tuned teeth, steel cam fixed to top of pin barrel driving the three automaton figures, two polished hammers repeating on coiled gongs, gilt-metal cuvette with apertures for winding each train, cuvette signed Roman Bordier & Cie, no. 20935

• Dial: eccentric gold dial with Arabic numerals, outer minute ring, decoratively chased and engraved centre, blued steel hands with gold tips, surrounded by a polychrome enamel painted classical landscape scene with a town in the background, the foreground with vari-colour gold automaton figures activated with the music and depicting two musicians playing lyres, a further figure with a floral crown, the musicians' arms raising and lowering to strum their lyres while the seated female figure raises and lowers her head and the arm holding the crown

• Case: gold, milled band, the back engraved with a pastoral scene depicting a shepherdess with her sheep and a young man playing a flute, lever to the edge of the case below 7 o'clock to activate music on demand, slide beneath the bezel by 8 o'clock for selecting music/silence, case numbered 20935 and with indistinct incuse case maker's mark SI

diameter 60.5mm

R. Chadwick, A Voyage Through Time, London: Unicorn, 2020, p. 245.

Combining the skill of Genevan enamelling with innovative watchmaking, the musical automaton movement can be attributed to Henry Capt. Henry-Daniel Capt was born in Le Chenit, Switzerland, in 1773. An important maker, Capt specialized in the production of watches and boxes incorporating music and automata. It is said that Capt was the first maker able to manufacture steel teeth that could play all notes of the musical scale. Between 1802 and 1811, Henri-Daniel worked together with Isaac-Daniel Piguet under the business name Piguet & Capt. In 1811, Piguet left the partnership to work with Philippe Meylan and Capt continued alone until 1830, when he entered into a new partnership with Aubert, their firm becoming Aubert & Capt. The majority of watches by Capt do not bear his signature. Typical of Capt's work, the movement for the musical train incorporates a pinned barrel rather than a pin-cylinder or pin-disc more commonly found in other musical automata watches made in Geneva during this period.