A very fine Fabergé gold, guilloché enamel and seed pearl desk clock, workmaster Michael Perchin, circa 1895

triangular, with pink translucent enamel over a radiating engine-turned ground painted with moss-like inclusions, the outer border decorated with amber and green enamel beads, the white enamel dial with Arabic numerals and gold openwork hands, bordered in seed pearls, with ivory backing and gold strut, marked Fabergé with workmaster's initials, 56 standard

John Sheldon, sold, Sotheby's London, The John Sheldon Collection, 28 October 1985, lot 188

Sotheby's New York, 19 April 2001, lot 44

The object in Perchin's production which relates most closely to the present lot is the well-known eight-pointed 'Polar Star' clock, formerly in the Forbes Collection, which is said to have been designed for use on board the Imperial yacht and which incorporates the same enamelled foliage on pink sunburst ground.  This motif, also favoured by Holmström, is sometimes called 'wintry foliage' after the French technique of decorating gold objects with winter landscapes painted en camaïeu in the late 1770s (also copied by Perchin), though it owes its inspiration to moss agate.  The 'yacht' clock also has the same beaded border but it is not enamelled, unlike that of the present lot.  For another Perchin triangular clock incorporating enamelled moss agate, see Christie's Geneva, 11 November 1975, lot 265.

The well-respected dealer and collector, John Sheldon, purchased Bentley & Co. in 1934, later moving to 65 New Bond Street.  His collection, much of which had not been seen since before World War II, was sold at Sotheby's London in 1985.

The original design for this clock is reproduced in A.N. Ivanov, Unknown Fabergé, 2002, p. 288 (see illustration).