Lot 189

Piguet & Capt zugeschr./attr. to

An important and unique, gold and enamel snuff box of museum quality, produced for the Chinese market; set with split pearls and decorated with a scene of a fire brigade featuring 12 automata in multi-colour gold with exquisite miniature enamel paintings of landscapes in the style of Jean-Louis Richter (1766-1841). This work of art is one of the most complicated automatons ever to come onto the market and may well be a one-of-a-kind object.

The muli-colour gold automaton scene features 12 actions: a soldier standing to attention watches a lakeside house on fire where the lambent fire in the roof structure is created by a fast moving red metal wheel behind an openwork wall. The open window reveals the raging fire and six figures running about in panic, trying to save their belongings, among them a mother and child. The centre of the scene is dominated by a fire engine with two men pumping water by moving their arms up and down. Another man holding a hosepipe directs a jet of water created by spiralled glass rods to the burning roof. On the right is a classical-style fountain with running water, its pump being moved up and down by a lady standing on the right side of the fountain. The illusion of the running water is again created by spiralled glass rods. In the front of the scene are a dog and an overturned table. The background of polychrome enamel is extensively painted with a river landscape, farm buildings and mountains; black smoke clouds the otherwise blue sky.
Other enamel landscape scenes decorate the base and the sides. In the style of Jean-Louis Richters (1766-1841) they show typical lakescapes with shepherds and shepherdesses, ships and boats, anglers and boatsmen against a translucent bright gold-coloured evening sky on a somewhat turbulent engine-turned ground.
The repair signature Charles Bruguier on the movement plate probably stands either for Charles Abraham Bruguier (1788-1862) or his son of the same name. The Bruguier family was famous in Geneva for their musical and singing bird boxes.
These works of art show the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the makers, combining the masterly crafts of the watchmaker, the goldsmith and the enameller to a magnificent piece of art. These objects were created in an epoch when Switzerland held a promionent position in the arts and crafts world. The growing trade relations to the Chinese, Ottoman and Russian markets created the foundation for the making of magnificent automatons in Geneva in the late 18th century. These marvels of engineering and craftsmanship were produced from 1780 to 1850 by the most renowned watchmakers of the time such as Piguet & Capt, in manifold variations. Creating objects of this quality and refinement is impossible today.
Provenance:
- Matthew P. McCullough Collection
- Sothebys, Important Watches, including the collection of Swiss mechanical marvels, Part II, New York, June 8, 2016, Lot 86
Literature:
- Roy Mosoriak, "The Curious History of Music boxes", Chicago 1943, pp. 90-91, plate 17
- Catalogue of the Exhibition "Antique Automatons A La Vieille Russie", 1950, Cat. no. 66

Isaac Daniel Piguet was born in 1775 in Le Chenit in the Vallée de Joux. From 1802 to 1811 Piguet worked with his brother-in-law Henry Daniel Capt as Piguet & Capt, before starting a partnership with Philippe Samuel‎ Meylan to establish the manufactory Piguet & Meylan; it existed until 1828. Piguet & Capt specialised in enamel pocket watches and snuff boxes with automatons, musical movements and watches with minute repeaters. Isaac Daniel Piguet died on January 20, 1841.
Jean-Louis Richter (1766-1841) learned his art under David-Etienne-Roux and Philippe-Samuel-Théodore Roux. He specialized in landscapes, lake-side scenes and marine-scapes, often representing ships in a harbor or battles with Men-of-War, but also portraits and hunting scenes. Richter did not often sign his work, but he style and quality of his paintings make them clearly recognizable as being of his hand. He applied his art principally to watch cases and snuff boxes and these were largely destined for the Chinese, Turkish, British and Italian markets.