Lot n° 7
Estimation :
6000 - 8000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 60 000EUR
Round watch called "basin", in yellow gold... - Lot 7 - Drouot Estimations
Round watch called "basin", in yellow gold (750) with painted decorations in polychrome enamels:
- on the lid, on hinge, of Meleager presenting the head of the boar of Calydon to Atalanta, seated, in a landscape,
- on the reverse of the lid, of a landscape with village and stream, animated by a man with his dog and swans,
- in the center of the dial, of Minerva in bust with two children,
- on the reverse of the case, of Venus and Love, seated under a drape, Mars under the features of a young man helmeted near her,
- on the case middle, of buildings in the Italian hilly countryside,
- at the bottom of the basin, of a landscape with a hamlet, animated by a flight of birds, with a tree and a house in the foreground.
Enamels from Besançon or Paris (?), not signed.
White enameled ring dial, Roman numeral hour markers, with a chased brass openwork hand.
Movement with key winding, in brass with folio and gut string fusee. V-shaped pillars.
Back plate signed Jacob De La Croix.
Screwed elongated cock in gilded brass, pierced and chased with floral scrolls imitating a strawberry plant; screw, notched wheel and spring in blued steel.
Ring of suspension with ring bélière.
Circa 1645-1660.
Gross weight : 42.8 g. - Diameter : 38 mm.
Some firing bubbles.
Wear; shocks, chips and missing enamel and a few small chips reattached, on the edges of the lid and its reverse, on the front of the box, and in the basin; cracks, especially on the bottom and the case.
Broken casing.
Jacob De LA CROIX, Master clockmaker active around 1645-1660
Apprentice in 1639 to Jean-Henry ESTER Father (1594-1669), Master clockmaker in Geneva.
He became Master and trained Daniel CUSIN in 1650 in Geneva.
The scene illustrating the cover of our watch is based on the engraving by François CHAUVEAU (1613-1676) of 1643, after the painting "Méléagre et Atalante" by Laurent de LA HYRE (1606-1656), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Harris Brisbane Dick fund, 1953, Inv. 53.600.294].
Another "bassine" watch with the same composition on the reverse of its case, also in enamel on gold, with a movement signed by Auguste Bretoneau in Paris (active between 1638 and 1658), dated circa 1645-1650 and with a diameter of 54 mm, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Pierpont Morgan, 1917, Inv. 17.190.1626].
(See Clare VINCENT, Some Seventheenth-Century French Painted Enamel Watches, in Metropolitan Museum Journal 37, pp. 89-106, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2002, p. 95).
The scene on the reverse of the case of our watch is based on the engraving by Michel DORIGNY (1616-1665), VOUET's son-in-law, of 1638, after the painting "Venus and Mars" by Simon VOUET (1590-1649), in the British Museum [Inv. 1841,1211.39.112].
A circular medallion in yellow gold and enamel, possibly a late remounting of elements of a watch case, presenting this composition of Venus and Mars on its lid, was sold by the Dutch antique dealer DEKKER, of Amsterdam.
It is dated 1645 and described as a work of the Blois school.
The animated landscapes of Italianate buildings painted on the counter-glazes and on the caseband of this watch are to be compared with engravings by Gabriel PERELLE (1604-1677) or Henry MAUPERCHE (1606-1686).
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