Lot 304

E. Robert & Co.

A lady's minute repeating hunting case pocket watch of high quality, with mahogany box

Sold

The gold case is decorated on the front with a sweepingly drawn monogram "LC". Radial Arabic numerals, red minutes and seconds decorate the white enamel dial, as well as the English signature "E. Robert & Co., Geneva", which is repeated in the movement. It is extremely rare to find ladies' pocket watches with striking trains, and are in such outstanding "high-end" quality as this one.

In the middle of the 19th century, Eugène Robert, a native of La Chaux-de-Fonds, emigrated to the USA. When he arrived in America, he first found employment with J. A. Abry. Together with Albert Wittnauer, he founded a watch shop there around 1845. In 1866, Robert founded his own watch dealership in New York under the name of J. Eugen Robert, and around 1868 a branch office in Geneva. During this time Robert also married a young Swiss woman named Wittnauer. Robert signed a contract with Ernest Francillon in 1877 for an annual purchase of 12 000 watches.
After Eugène Robert withdrew from the company in 1890 and Albert C. Wittnauer took over the business, the company traded as "A. Wittnauer & Co". Wittnauer owned several agencies in the USA and Canada. It exclusively offered watches from the Swiss companies Longines, Agassiz, Angelus, Stolz, Girard-Perregaux and Audemars Piguet. The company also operated a watch manufacturing business under its own name.