Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Breguet pocket watch, quarter-repeater with two striking Jacks, circa 1800-1810
- Maker / attribution
- Breguet (brand / maker)
- Date
- c. 1800-1810
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- France
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- 18k yellow gold
- Dimensions
- diameter 55.6 mm
- Auction house
- Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
- Lot
- Lot 345-24
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: LOT 24, Hong Kong, December 5th, 2021
- Catalogue title (original)
- UNSIGNED Pocket watch, quarter-repeater with two striking Jacks, automaton concealed erotic scene; 18K yellow gold and multicoloured gold Les Bons Sauvages (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva (lot Lot 345-24), this is a pocket watch by Breguet, made in France, dated c. 1800-1810. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: 18k yellow gold. Recorded dimensions: diameter 55.6 mm. The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Antiquorum catalogue description
18K yellow gold, open-face, key-winding, round-shaped, pocket watch, with one horological complication:· Quarter-repeater on two steel gongs (activated by depressing the pendant)The chiselled varicoloured gold scene shows two Jacquemarts (Jacks), “Les Bons Sauvages”, striking the elapsed time. The woman, on the left, strikes the hours and the first shot of the quarters while the man, on the right, strikes the second shot of the quarters, and, below, a goat moves its mouth; all animated by the repeating mechanism. Under this scene set at six o’clock, there is a second concealed automaton erotic scene (discovered and activated by the push-piece at 6 o’clock) showing a couple making love.Case-back guilloché (engine-turned). with a medallion at 6. Gilded metal cuvette (dome).Movement 21’’’, gilded brass, with fusee and chain, verge escapement, monometallic balance (gilded brass) and blued steel flat hairspring, pierced and engraved gilded continental cock; repeater work on the main plate, under the dial.
Lot specifications (Antiquorum)
Model: (apocryphal signature) made in Geneva or Neuchâtel mountains; Movement No.: 1 934; Case No.: 51 292 / 31 416 (by “F L / B”); Caliber: 21’’’, fusee and chain, verge escapement; Diameter: 55.6 mm; Signature: Movement
Inscriptions & marks
Movement
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
From 1750 to 1850 the watch became a precision instrument. Mudge's lever escapement, the cylinder escapement, Lépine's thin bar calibre, Breguet's innovations (overcoil, tourbillon, perpétuelle) and the pocket chronometer of Arnold and Earnshaw all date from this period, while verge watches remained common in cheaper production.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Repeating watches
Before electric light, telling the time in the dark was a real problem. Repeating watches strike the time on demand when a slide or push-piece is operated: quarter repeaters sound hours and quarters, minute repeaters hours, quarters and minutes. Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare disputed the invention in London in the 1680s. Early repeaters struck on a bell inside the case; Abraham-Louis Breguet introduced the gong (a coiled steel wire) around 1780, allowing thinner watches.
Repeaters require a separate train with racks, snails and a governor to control the striking speed, and are among the most demanding complications to make and adjust. Swiss makers of the Vallée de Joux specialised in repeating ébauches in the nineteenth century.
What to look for
- A slide on the case band or a push-piece through the pendant.
- Gongs encircling the movement (after c. 1780) or a bell in the case (earlier); pierced case for sound.
- The racks, snails and governor visible under the dial or on the movement.
- Terms such as 'Minutes', 'Quarts' or 'Répétition' on the dial or cuvette.
Dating clues
- Bell-striking quarter repeaters: c. 1690–1800.
- Gong repeaters and dumb repeaters (striking on the case): after c. 1780.
- Minute repeaters became more common after c. 1830 with Vallée de Joux ébauches.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Minute repeater
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