Pierre Romilly. An extremely rare silver pair case quarter repeating verge watch

SIGNED PIERRE ROMILLY, CIRCA 1700

Details

Pierre Romilly. An extremely rare silver pair case quarter repeating verge watch
Signed Pierre Romilly, circa 1700
Gilt-finished verge movement, chain fusée, finely pierced and engraved balance cock and foot, repeating on a hammer onto a bell, chased silver dial, Roman numerals, outer Arabic five minute divisions, centered by the official coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the English Lion to the left and the Unicorn of Scotland to the right, circular inner case, finely pierced band decorated with foliage and birds, outer case with similarly decorated bezel and rim, repeating through the pendant, dial and movement signed
61 mm. overall diam.

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Lot Essay

The present watch is one of the exceedingly rare timepieces, possibly even the only one, by Pierre Romilly (1681-1717, master watchmaker in Geneva and father of the celebrated Jean Romilly) to be offered in over 30 years of public auctions.

His son Jean (Geneva 1714 - Paris 1796), master watchmaker active in Paris, worked also as a journalist and encyclopedist. He was one of the founders of the Journal de Paris in 1777 and editor of the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert. He maintained friendly contacts with the famous philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1760, Jacques Frédéric Houriet worked during a short period of time with Romilly.

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