Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1369. A rare, fine and unusual double-dialled watch with mock pendulum and slow beating frictional rest escapement with pirouette Circa 1775.

Marcinhes à Paris

A rare, fine and unusual double-dialled watch with mock pendulum and slow beating frictional rest escapement with pirouette Circa 1775

Auction Closed

May 14, 02:23 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 15,000 CHF

Lot Details

Description

Marcinhes à Paris


A rare, fine and unusual double-dialled watch with mock pendulum and slow beating frictional rest escapement with pirouette

Circa 1775


• Movement: gilded full plate with going barrel, frictional rest escapement, escape wheel with 'C'-shaped teeth, balance staff mounted with counter-poised arm for mock pendulum, balance mounted between front white enamel dial and the top-plate with toothed rim geared to three-arm pirouette mounted between front and back plates, regulation arm to movement edge below 6 o'clock

• Dial: front - white enamel, Roman numerals, outer Arabic minute ring, aperture for winding, gold beetle and poker hands, signed Marcinhes à Paris• back - off-set white enamel dial, Roman numerals, outer Arabic minute ring, blued steel asymmetrical plate, applied vari-colour gold classical decoration with pillars, cascading bow and urn of flowers, aperture displaying the mock pendulum

• Case: gold bezels with geometric decoration, glazed to front and back


diameter 42mm

R. Chadwick, A Voyage Through Time, London: Unicorn, 2020, p. 338.

A most unusual watch, the frictional rest escapement has a large escape wheel with C-shaped teeth and an action not dissimilar to that of a cylinder escapement. A toothed periphery to the balance wheel drives the pirouette wheel's pinion. The counterpoised mock pendulum arm is mounted to the balance staff and the movement's slow beating escapement allows the mock pendulum to more closely mimic the action of a clock's pendulum, thereby suggesting a greater level of accuracy to the viewer. The two dials can be separately set to display local time in two different vicinities. 


Although more than one watchmaker by the name of Marcinhes is known from this period, it is possible that the watch was made by Pierre-François Marcinhes (1739-1778) who was originally from Geneva.