Lot 312

L'Epine

Oboi, Regent der Qing-Dynastie

An important, rare and very fine gold enamel quarter repeating pocket watch for the Chinese market

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The enamelled back is decorated with a polychrome painting showing a Chinese sovereign wearing a peacockfeathered hat on an extensively ornamented throne against a background of guilloché and translucent cobalt blue enamel. It is probably a representation of Oboi (c. 1610-1669), a prominent Manchu military commander and courtier who served in various military and administrative posts under three successive emperors of the early Qing dynasty. Born to the Guwalgiya clan, Oboi was one of four regents nominated by the Shunzhi Emperor to oversee the government during the minority of the Kangxi Emperor. Oboi reversed the benevolent policies of the Shunzhi Emperor, and vigorously pushed for clear reassertion of Manchu power over the Han Chinese. Eventually deposed and imprisoned by the new emperor for having amassed too much power, he was posthumously rehabilitated.

Jean-Antonine Lépine (1720-1814)
Lépine went to Paris in 1744 to work in the shop of André-Charles Caron. He later married Caron's daughter and obtained his master craftsman's certificate in 1756. Lépine became known in 1763 when he invented a new striking mechanism for pocket watches, which was made public in the "Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences" in 1766. Lépine was appointed clockmaker to the king in 1765; he took over his father-in-law's workshop a year later. His idea of replacing the backplate with bridges and cocks made the service of the watches much easier and achieved his breakthrough in 1770. He formed a partnership with Claude-Pierre Raguet in 1792 and called himself "Horloger du Roi" from then on.