84. Auktion - Auktionen Dr. Crott

scale productions, such as pastoral scenes, theatre pieces or concerts.
Automata were soon being used to animate a wide variety of objects, such
as scent bottles, amphorae, mirrors or snuffboxes; their use as timepieces
was often merely a pretext for possessing these exquisite creations. And
since where there is life, there is sound, the automata were fitted with a
musical mechanism. The acknowledged masters of this marriage between
ornamental watches and automata included Pierre Morand, Henry Capt,
Isaac Daniel Piguet and Philippe Samuel Meylan as well as the Jaquet
Droz workshop in Geneva, with colleagues and successors Jean-Frédéric
Leschot and Jacob Frisard. All were the brilliant creators of musical
watches functioning first with chiming bells, and later with a cylinder or
pin-drum that caused a comb made up of a set of blades to vibrate. These
watches were especially prized in the East and during trade with Turkey
and China they acquired a subtle local touch, a discreetly exotic charm
that makes them easy to distinguish today. In the hands of the Rochat
family and the Bruguier workshop, this tradition continued until 1850.
Source: La Tribune des Arts présente en exclusivité le Patek Philippe
Museum, http://www.patekmuseum.com/as of 10/07/2011.
33654 G/C: 2 Z/D: 2, 16 W/M: 2, 41
600.000 - 800.000 EUR 810.000 - 1.080.000 USD 6.000.000 -
8.000.000 HKD