Lot 76

Signed Breguet à Paris, Case No. 5774, 54 mm, 95 g, circa 1800
An important and extremely rare gold enamel pocket watch with four automatons: "The Angler at the Mill" - made for the Chinese market
Case: 18k gold, glazed back with a polychrome enamelled genre painting and an applied four colour gold automaton scene. Dial: enamel. Movm.: full plate movement, keywind, chain/fusee, verge escapement, three-arm brass balance.
The setting shows a mill against a polychrome enamel background with alpine landscape, farm buildings and a stream; from an upper window of the mill, an angler holds his rod into the water. The four-colour gold automaton is attached to the building - an aperture shows a stream driving a spinning mill wheel. Another opening reveals a blazing fire; on the ground a goose is looking for some food. In the front an applied and chased four-colour gold scene pictures a goatherd under a tree with his animals to the right.
The dial is off-centred and has Arabic numerals. An oval regulation scale sits below 6.
The automaton is independent of the watch movement and operated by a barrel and train via cams and levers.
Provenance: Galerie d'Horlogerie Ancienne, Hongkong, Vente XX-XXI, May 26, 1980, estimate CHF 60.000 - 80.000.
A similar watch is illustrated and described in "La Montre Suisse" by Eugene Jaquet et Alfred Chapuis, plate 102, Basle 1945, Collection G. DuBois à Peseux. Another one was sold at Sotheby's in New York for USD 98,500 (lot 110).