BOUVIER FRÈRES

BOUVIER FRÈRES, SWITZERLAND, POCKET WATCH WITH “WANDERING” AUTOMATA, 18K YELLOW GOLD AND ENAMEL A very fine and rare, 18k gold and enamel, "wandering automaton" pocket watch double-face, open-face, key-winding pocket watch with “wandering” automata visible through an aperture at 12 o’clock. White enamel dial with an eccentric time dial in the lower section, featuring Breguet numerals, and fast-and-slow regulation above; Breguet hands. Fausse-plaque finely decorated with polychrome champlevé enamel on a red ground, depicting flowers and foliage. Above, within a semi-circular aperture, a series of gold automata figures, driven by the going train, revolve like a carousel, depicting a hunting scene with dogs, hunters and deer, completing one rotation every minute. Brand: BOUVIER FRÈRES, Switzerland Year: Circa 1795 Caliber: 43 mm., full plate gilt brass movement with cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement with plain brass three armed balance. Diameter: 50 mm. Signature: Dial Grading System: AAA (Excellent) Case: 3-24 (Good , Slightly chipped) Dial: 3-71-72-04 (Good , Hairlines , Chipped winding aperture , HANDS Later) Movement: 3* (Good , Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense) HKD: 96,000 - 192,000 USD: 12,200 - 24,300 EUR: 10,800 - 21,600 JPY: 1,920,000 - 3,840,000 Bouvier, Geneva Bouvier Frères (probably Jacques and David) are well known for their high-quality double-face watches with “wandering” automata, made at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries for the English and French markets but also for the Chinese market. From their workshop, a much more complicated watch is listed (double- face with two-train) fitted with three motion automatons (Sotheby’s, New York, auction, December 6, 2011, lot 110, sold for the amount of US$ 98 500.-). These watchmakers come from a family from the Pays de Gex (French region close to Geneva). One of their brothers or cousins is the famous and talented painter Pierre-Louis Bouvier (1765-1836), specialist in miniature portraits painted on enamel or oil, inventor of a machine to grind pigments (machine approved by the Institut de France in Paris). Very few watches of this type, fitted in a “Directoire”-shaped gold case, are known to exist. They are signed by the horlogers-marchants (watchmakers and merchants), Bouvier Frères (Brothers) and by Chevalier & Cochet, both associations from Geneva. These watches exist with visible balance and / or fast-and-slow regulation. The Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva kept in its collection few examples signed by Bouvier Frères: • No. 6 389 (Inv. S-213; on this one, the figures wandering and swivelling on themselves); • No. 7 066 (Inv. S-666; this one unsigned), a later one, circa 1800- 1805, in Retour d’Egypte (Egyptian Revival) Empire-style (illustrated by Chapuis, Alfred, & Gélis, Edouard, Le monde des automates, étude historique et technique, Paris, Neuchâtel, 1928, vol. II, p. 71, ill. 357). • No. 6 129 (Inv. S-211); • No. 6 589 (Inv. S-212);

Estimate:$12,094.46

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