Lot 182

Breguet No. 2804 / Antonio Aguatti zugeschr./attr. to

Ponte Mammolo

A remarkable, very rare, one-handed "Montre de Souscription"-type pocket watch with micromosaic

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The numbering of this watch does not correspond to the Breguet archives. It is therefore not a watch from Breguet's workshop, but possibly from his environment.
The back is decorated with a magnificent polychrome micromosaic showing a riverside landscape with an ancient stone bridge with a ruined tower, as well as other buildings. This is the "Ponte Mammolo" on the Aniene River, a tributary of the Tiber, after an engraving of Giuseppe Vasi (1710-1782), published in 1754.
The tiny mosaic stones have been set in such a way that they follow the structure of the masonry and give an incredibly naturalistic effect.
Mikromosaics are made of unusually small pieces of glass, fragments of coloured enamel or tiny pieces of hard stone, which are composed in very small areas. Micromosaics were at their most popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. The first documented exhibition was organised by Giacomo Raffaelli (1753-1836) in his private studio on Piazza di Spagna in 1775. Raffaelli came from a family of mosaic makers and is credited with a number of innovations, whereas some of them were probably invented a little before his time. Most groundbreaking was the discovery of the "smalti filati", where slender, thin glass rods are elongated and cut vertically thus creating very fine small mosaic parts. Raffaelli mainly created micromosaics showing images of ancient Rome to be bought as travel souvenirs by members of the wealthy European nobility. His work sold extremely well and production continued a long time. In 1820 more than 20 such workshops existed in Rome.
Antonio Aguatti (?-1846), descendant of a successful Italian mosaic-making dynasty refined this imagery even further. He perfected his work by diversifying the shapes of his mosaic materials by including curved pieces. This often gave his work the appearance of being painted and in 1834 he was appointed professor at the Studio Vaticano del Mosaico.