Centuries of Time: A Private Collection
Centuries of Time: A Private Collection
A rare verge watch movement with early application of the balance spring and silver-gilt dial made for the Persian Market with later glass covered mounts Movement and dial circa 1678, glass covers circa 19th century
Auction Closed
May 14, 02:23 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 CHF
Lot Details
Description
P. Lagisse
A rare verge watch movement with early application of the balance spring and silver-gilt dial made for the Persian Market with later glass covered mounts
Movement and dial circa 1678, glass covers circa 19th century
• Movement: gilded oval movement with scalloped edge, verge escapement, going barrel with decoratively pierced cover and without fusee, plain three-arm balance with blued steel spring, decoratively pierced and engraved balance cock and foot, small silver regulation plate with ribbed blued steel retaining arm/indicator, vase shaped pillars, signed P. Lagisse
• Dial: silver champlevé dial with traces of gilding, Roman numerals interspersed by quatrefoil roundels, quarter hour divisions to the ring beneath and rosette to centre, single blued steel turned baluster hand
• Case: later glass covered gilt-metal mounts, the glass covers with lobed design, short ring pendant and terminal
length including pendant and terminal 53mm, width 32mm
Lord Sandberg.
Although a few watchmakers by the name of Lagisse are known, this watch can be attributed to Pierre-Didier Lagisse (1625-1679), a watchmaker from Geneva who spent several years working in Isfahan (Persia) where he became clockmaker and adviser to Shah Abbas II. Having amassed a personal fortune, Lagisse later returned to Geneva (see: Osvaldo Patrizzi, Dictionnaire des Horlogers Genevois, p. 247). The unusual shaping of the case and decoration of the dial fit within the anachronistic genre of watches produced by expatriate watchmakers for the Middle Eastern market during this period.
An early example of a watch with a balance spring by a maker from Geneva, the delicate piercing to the balance cock, which has a three-spoked appearance, allows for easier viewing of this novel element. Indeed, the fact that the balance cock is silver rather than gilded provides a further focus to the balance and its revolutionary spring.
Two further watches by Pierre-Didier Lagisse which can be found at the Patek Philippe Museum (inv. S-179 & S-334) are illustrated in P. Friess, The Emergence of the Portable Watch, Patek Philippe Museum, 2005, vol. III, pp. 60 & 101. The Patek Philippe Museum's inv. S-179 (formerly in the Marryat Collection, see: H. Marryat, Henlein to Tompion, 1938, pl. G2, p. 59) has a circular movement but also an early application of the balance spring, and similar 'Tompion'-style regulator with almost identical ribbed retaining arm/indicator to that found on the present watch.