Exceptional Discoveries: The Olmsted Complications Collection
Sylvain Mairet
A heavy yellow gold hunting-cased quarter repeating pocket chronometer with thermometer indication, Circa 1840
No reserve
Lot Closed
December 10, 06:07 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 7,000 USD
We may charge or debit your saved payment method subject to the terms set out in our Conditions of Business for Buyers.
Read more.Lot Details
Description
Movement: key wound spring detent escapement, blued steel helical hairspring, free-sprung regulator, fusee and chain, signed S. Mairet, Locle
Dial: white enamel dial, Roman numerals, subsidiary dials for constant seconds and a fan-form retrograde dial calibrated for temperatures in Reaumur, Centigrade and Fahrenheit
Case: 18k yellow gold, repeating slide on the band, engraved monograms to the front and back lids, front and back lid interiors numbered 17769, case back and cuvette interiors further numbered 368
Signed: movement signed by S. Mairet, Locle
Diameter: 54 mm
Accessories: accompanied by photocopy of Graus Antiques invoice dated November 27th, 1972, referencing the purchase of two timepieces, including the present lot
G.H. Baillie, Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World, Great Britain, 1963, p. 171.
- 'JEANMAIRET, Sylvian, Le Locle. b.1805, d.1890. Spent five years in London an.1840. A fine precision watch and chron. maker. Most of his lever watches had all the lift on the esc. wheel teeth.'
Sylvain Mairet was born in 1805 and raised by his uncle, F.I. Favre-Bulle, a watchmaker in his own right. After working in London from 1831 to 1834, for firms such as Hunt & Roskell and Vuillamy, he returned to his native Switzerland and settled in Le Locle. In 1867, he received a gold medal to commemorate his influence on watchmaking in the Canton of Neuchâtel.
His watch cases, among the flattest of the period, have a highly distinctive bow which is hinged directly in the pendant. This extremely elegant bow has since been used by only one horologist: George Daniels, in England. Daniels further improved the system by using the pendant as a winding and time-setting device. At the 1855 Universal Exhibition in Paris, he showed two watches in the Palais de l'Industrie. One had Grande Sonnerie and keyless winding, first using in a watch he finished on April 20, 1850.This device was later adopted for independent seconds, watches and clockwatches which also feature two going trains and two barrels.
Sylvain Mairet was also the inventor of a lever escapement with pointed pallets and lift on the escape wheel teeth. A slot in the bevelled portion of the pallet allows for better oil-retention in the parts subject to friction. This system was adopted so that the locking pallet might be adjusted in order to lessen the drop and equalise the impulses.