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Lot 107
The Princess Bagration Breguet. A fine and rare second quarter of the 19th century French ormolu half-quarter repeating carriage clock timepiece with calendar, running seconds and alarm. Sold to Princess Bagration on 26th October 1837 for 3500 Francs. With certificate number 4248. Breguet number 4768
11 December 2019, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£80,000 - £120,000
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The Princess Bagration Breguet. A fine and rare second quarter of the 19th century French ormolu half-quarter repeating carriage clock timepiece with calendar, running seconds and alarm. Sold to Princess Bagration on 26th October 1837 for 3500 Francs. With certificate number 4248.
Breguet number 4768
The case:
the bar-and tassel handle hinged in lion's head pommels on an engine turned top set to each corner with a cast ball finial, the cornice with flowerhead decoration over tapering inverted torch columns with lotus-leaf bases and capitals, on a base set to each corner with a cast lions paw flanking further anthemion and lotus leaf scrolls, on a plain plinth and button feet, (the front left hand foot punch numbered '4768 / 8'
The dial:
the silvered dial with outer dotted minute track, Roman numerals and inner dotted quarter track, with overlapping running seconds subsidiary dial at XII, with blued steel Breguet hands and a polished steel alarm-setting hand, signed in the frosted silvered centre 'Breguet', within an engine turned mask with central winding square flanked by chamfered apertures for the date and day, further set with a rose gold shield-shaped escutcheon marked 'Reveil' for the alarm setting
The movement:
Of eight day duration, with high count, highly polished pinions throughout, the large gilt platform with cut and compensated bimetallic balance, the blued steel spring with Breguet's overcoil and parachute suspension above a shaped aperture to house the in-line lever escapement and jewelled pallets. Repeating the time to the nearest 7.5 minutes via a steel-headed hammer on the bell on depression of the button in the top. The alarm struck on the same bell but with a larger hammer and powered by a separate alarm train wound by a cord in the top, with original button.
16.5cms (6.5ins) high.
The case:
the bar-and tassel handle hinged in lion's head pommels on an engine turned top set to each corner with a cast ball finial, the cornice with flowerhead decoration over tapering inverted torch columns with lotus-leaf bases and capitals, on a base set to each corner with a cast lions paw flanking further anthemion and lotus leaf scrolls, on a plain plinth and button feet, (the front left hand foot punch numbered '4768 / 8'
The dial:
the silvered dial with outer dotted minute track, Roman numerals and inner dotted quarter track, with overlapping running seconds subsidiary dial at XII, with blued steel Breguet hands and a polished steel alarm-setting hand, signed in the frosted silvered centre 'Breguet', within an engine turned mask with central winding square flanked by chamfered apertures for the date and day, further set with a rose gold shield-shaped escutcheon marked 'Reveil' for the alarm setting
The movement:
Of eight day duration, with high count, highly polished pinions throughout, the large gilt platform with cut and compensated bimetallic balance, the blued steel spring with Breguet's overcoil and parachute suspension above a shaped aperture to house the in-line lever escapement and jewelled pallets. Repeating the time to the nearest 7.5 minutes via a steel-headed hammer on the bell on depression of the button in the top. The alarm struck on the same bell but with a larger hammer and powered by a separate alarm train wound by a cord in the top, with original button.
16.5cms (6.5ins) high.
Footnotes
Accompanied by a certificate signed and dated by Emmanuel Breguet 25th June 2004. Sold to Princess Bagration on the 26 October 1837 for 3,500 Francs.
Princess Catherine Bagration (1783-1857) was a Russian princess married to General Pyotr Bagration in 1800. She left her husband in 1805 and travelled through Europe, settling in Vienna in 1810. Her frequent travels have earned her the epitaph 'the Wandering Princess'. While in Vienna, she had a daughter with Prince von Metternich, and her salon became a centre of anti-Napoleonic conspiracies. The Prince died in 1812, and three years later, she moved to Paris. In 1830 she married a much younger man, John Hobart Caradoc, 2nd Baron Howden, but they soon separated. She died in Venice in 1857; this clock would have been her companion for the last 20 years of an incredible life.