Lot 301

Vincent Martin à Saint-Brieuc, Case No. 3942, 41 mm, 57 g, circa 1786
A gentleman's rare Breton pocket watch with an early Martin-Pouzait-pin-pallet escapement
Case: 18k gold. Dial: enamel. Movm.: full plate movement, chain/fusee, three-arm brass balance.
Vincent Martin was born in 1755 and trained with Ferdinand Berthoud. In 1785 he settled in Brest and was awarded the position of Horloger de la Marine a year later.
The lever developed by Martin is - like Pouzait’s lever - constructed on two levels, the distinctive fork is shaped like a wide letter V that carries two vertical pins on the ends. One of the pins points up, the other points down. This watch could date from before 1786, which is the year Martin is first mentioned as working in Brest, and when Pouzait developed his escapement. This would mean that Martin actually invented the construction Pouzait used in his pocket watches with slow-beat escapement.
This watch is illustrated and described in Adolphe Chapiro‘s "Taschenuhren aus vier Jahrhunderten, Die Geschichte der französischen Taschenuhr" (four centuries of pocket watches, the history of French pocket watches), Callwey Munich 1995, p. 199ff.

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