111st Auction

2024/11/16

Lot 342

Bourdin à Paris
Medaille de 1re Classe 1855

An impressive pocket watch "Montre à Tact" with raised hour markers, quarter repeater and engraved monograms with royal crowns and coat of arms of House Bourbon

Sold

estimated
10.00020.000 €
Price realized
20.000 €
specific features
Case
18 K gold, elaborately engraved on both sides, the caseband with touch pieces for hours to "feel" the time.
Dial
Enamel.
Movement
Bridge movement, 2 hammers / 2 gongs, club-tooth lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance, special counterpoised lever according to Louis Audemars.
Case no.5178 8858
Diam.48 mm
Circa1880
Ctry.France
Wt.132 g


Both sides of the case are all over decorated with supreme quality engraving, the front shows three crowned monograms "CC". The monograms alternate with gracefully curved cartouches, which show (in clockwise direction) personifications of Spring, Summer and Autumn. A central circle holds the royal French emblem of the House of Bourbon with three fleur-de-lis, surrounded by a rows of shells. The back is similarly decorated with three monograms with the royal crown alternate with three cartouches with allegoric putti representations of music, science and painting. The Bourbon emblem in the centre has the form of a revolving disc, which allows reading the time through the raised hour markers near the edge.
The monogram with the inertwined "CC" is reminiscent of the emblem of Prince Charles III Grimaldi of Monaco (1818-1889) who lost his eyesight late in life. However, the royal crowns and the central coat of arms are ornamented with the fleur-de-Lys, which points to a French or foreign branch of House Bourbon. From 1589 to the French Revolution in 1792 and later from 1815 to 1830 the sovereigns of France came from the House of Bourbon; House Bourbon was a powerful European dynasty whose members held influential positions in many European kingdoms.


Athanase-Elysée Bourdin was born on 28 January 1811 in Crécy-sur-Serre, Aisne. From 1840 to around 1865, he was a watch and clock maker based at 24 and 28 rue de la Paix in Paris.
Bourdin invented a new compensation pendulum which was presented by Achille Hubert Benoit to the "Société D'Encouragenment Pour L'Industrie Nationale" in May 1850. He was appointed "Horloger du Roy" and won medals at various Paris exhibitions. His carriage clocks were often decorated by the famous engraver Charles Demengeot. Athanase-Elysée Bourdin died in Orléans, Loiret, on 22 March 1894 at the age of 83.
Source: watch-wiki.org