99th Auction
2019/5/11
Lot 392
Breguet à Paris, No. 3876, Case No. 6807, 34 mm, 40 g, circa 1861
A lady's important, small quarter repeating gold enamel pocket watch - sold on September 27th, 1861 to Monsieur Constant Say for 1350 Francs. With Breguet extract from the archives no. 4533. Made by Louis Audemars company in Les Brassus for Breguet in Paris
Case: 18k gold, engraved with geometrical Greek style patterns and opaque black enamelled, engraved monogram "E". Dial: enamel, auxiliary seconds. Movm.: bridge movement, lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance.
Constant Say (1816-1871) came from a family of big industrialists. His father Louis Say and the well-known economist Jean-Baptiste Say had established a sugar refinery in Nantes together and it had turned into one of the largest of its kind in France.
The managing director of the Say refinery, François-Ernest Crosnier, had lost company money in speculation and committed suicide on August 27, 1905. During the stock market crash the sugar refinery supposedly lost 28 million gold francs and the family members were forced to cut back their spending. Constant Say’s daughter Marie Charlotte (later known as Princess Amédée de Broglie, 1857-1943), is reputed to have said to her first husband: "I think we will have to tighten our belts. I have decided to serve the canapés without the foie gras."
The princess was widowed in 1917; at the age of 73 she married Prince Louis-Ferdinand d'Orléans (1888-1945), Infante of Spain, who was 31 years her junior and squandered what was left of his wife’s money. In 1943 the Princess died at the age of 86 in a modest flat in the Rue de Grenelle, almost a pauper. Her father was buried in a grand tomb at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
A lady's important, small quarter repeating gold enamel pocket watch - sold on September 27th, 1861 to Monsieur Constant Say for 1350 Francs. With Breguet extract from the archives no. 4533. Made by Louis Audemars company in Les Brassus for Breguet in Paris
Case: 18k gold, engraved with geometrical Greek style patterns and opaque black enamelled, engraved monogram "E". Dial: enamel, auxiliary seconds. Movm.: bridge movement, lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance.
Constant Say (1816-1871) came from a family of big industrialists. His father Louis Say and the well-known economist Jean-Baptiste Say had established a sugar refinery in Nantes together and it had turned into one of the largest of its kind in France.
The managing director of the Say refinery, François-Ernest Crosnier, had lost company money in speculation and committed suicide on August 27, 1905. During the stock market crash the sugar refinery supposedly lost 28 million gold francs and the family members were forced to cut back their spending. Constant Say’s daughter Marie Charlotte (later known as Princess Amédée de Broglie, 1857-1943), is reputed to have said to her first husband: "I think we will have to tighten our belts. I have decided to serve the canapés without the foie gras."
The princess was widowed in 1917; at the age of 73 she married Prince Louis-Ferdinand d'Orléans (1888-1945), Infante of Spain, who was 31 years her junior and squandered what was left of his wife’s money. In 1943 the Princess died at the age of 86 in a modest flat in the Rue de Grenelle, almost a pauper. Her father was buried in a grand tomb at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
estimated
10.000—15.000 €
Price realized
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