Lot 30

A. Lange & Söhne

1815 MONDPHASE

An early and rare Glashuette wristwatch with moon phase and applied constellation - limited edition no. 135 of 250 pieces, "Hommage à Emil Lange" (1849-1922) - with original box, operating instructions, guarantee certificate and sales receipt

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This masterpiece with a fine, playful dial was created in 1999 to commemorate the 150th birthday of Emil Lange, 2nd son of the company’s founder A. Lange. The edition was limited to 150 pieces in platinum (Ref. 231.035) and 250 pink gold pieces (Ref. 231.031). Emil Lange joined the company A. Lange & Söhne in 1871 together with his brother Richard and led the business to gain outstanding international recognition.
Its unusual details make the 1815 MONDPHASE Hommage à Emil Lange certainly one of the most beautiful and rare timepieces ever created by A. Lange & Söhne. What will first and foremost fascinate the clock enthusiast is the precision with which the Lange designers have calculated the transmission of the moon phase indication for exactly 1000 years to come - the engineers did not settle for the conventional moon phase calculation which assumes that the moon travels around the earth in approximately 29 days, but tried to adapt to the actual astronomical conditions; these are based on the exact time of the synodic month, which is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds. The "Big Dipper" with its seven similar sized stars is depicted with gold appliques. Next to the centrally located star "Mizar" is the smaller "Alcor" (Arabic: saddles), which in ancient times was used as a popular test object for excellent sharpness of vision.
This means that the “1815 MONDPHASE” follows the same principle of calculation as the very large astronomical clocks do.
Source: "Die Legende ist wieder Uhr geworden" by Lange Uhren GmbH, Glashuette 1999.