I. Rousseau, à Orleans

A SILVER OIGNON WATCH WITH BALANCE IN THE FORM OF A MOCK PENDULUM CIRCA 1700

No reserve

Reserves

Lot Closed

September 16, 03:14 PM GMT

Estimate

700 - 1,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Masterworks of Time Collection

I. Rousseau, à Orleans

A SILVER OIGNON WATCH WITH BALANCE IN THE FORM OF A MOCK PENDULUM

CIRCA 1700

• Movement: gilded full plate, verge escapement, Egyptian pillars, flat two-arm balance, one arm in imitation of a pendulum bob, single-turn spiral spring, large solid balance bridge decoratively engraved with flowers, foliage and birds and with aperture to reveal balance and 'faux' bob, signed I. Rousseau, à Orleans

• Dial: silver champlevé, Roman numerals with half-hour divisions between and quarter hour divisions beneath, all against a stippled ground, dial centre chased and engraved with birds and scrolling foliage, arbor for winding through dial centre, single turned blued steel hand with floriate-form head

• Case: silver, the back centred with concentrically engraved circles, square hinge

diameter 60mm

Tardy notes a Jean and a Jacques Rousseau as active in Orléans - the latter being so between 1695 and 1736. Interestingly, Tardy illustrates the backplate of a movement from the M. Calvet collection which appears to have a very similarly executed signature to that on the movement of the present watch. The Calvet collection watch also has a decorative balance bridge of mock pendulum form, not wholly dissimilar to that on the present watch although its decoration is more floral and less architectural. Of further interest is the image of the case back of a watch by Jacques Rousseau from the Orléans museum which has a similar arrangement of concentric circles to its centre. Both watches are illustrated in Tardy's 1972 edition of Dictionnaire des Horlogers Français, p. 575.