Lot 404

Henri Perregaux, Locle, Case No. 14282, 45 mm, 64 g, circa 1860
A gentleman's small pocket watch with jumping seconds
Case: 18k gold. Dial: enamel. Movm.: bridge movement, 2 barrels, gold screw compensation balance.
The back of this watch shows an exquisite engraving of a painting by Adolphe Mouilleron after an illustration by E.J.C. Hamman, showing the physician Andreas Vesalius in his study, with a corpse, his books and his instruments.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was born in Brussels, a Flemish physician and anatomist of the Renaissance; he is generally regarded as the founder of modern anatomy.
Vesalius studied at the universities of Leuven and Paris. In Leuven he was able to conduct his first public autopsy in 1537, before going to Italy where he received a doctorate and became a professor at the surgical ward in Padua. Vesalius went to Venice, Bologna, Basel and Pisa; he was appointed personal physician to Emperor Charles V and later to the court at the Hague, he published a great number of anatomical papers and treatises. On the return journey of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Vesalius was taken ill and died on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

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