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Lot Essay
Accompanied by Patek Philippe Extract from the Archives confirming production of the present watch with enamel painting after Greuze in 1972 and its subsequent sale on 16 January 1975. It has never been offered in public before.
Since the 1960s, when Patek Philippe re-launched the production of watches with enamel miniatures, only a handful of these masterpieces were created in collaboration with famous artists such as Suzanne Rohr or J.-L. Péter (see lot 273 in this auction). These watches were usually cased in the traditional openface style whereas only very few were finished as hunting cased watches.
The enamel of the present watch is signed by Mrs. Suzanne Rohr, one of the last artists able to perpetuate the supremely exacting art of miniature painting on enamel. Mrs. Rohr, who celebrated 35 years of collaboration with Patek Philippe in 2002, reserves her talent for the company. In her hands, the secret alchemy of the coloured enamels offers a second life of unequalled depth and finesse to some of the world's greatest art treasures.
The enamel miniature on the present watch is after Jean-Baptiste Greuze's work Boy in Red Waistcoat of which neither the date of creation nor its actual location are known.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)
French genre and portrait painter who studied at the Académie Royale and won recognition at the 1755 Salon with his "Blind Man Deceived". Greuze travelled in Italy and on his return painted a series of popular realistic pictures of a dramatic and moralizing character. His work was praised by Diderot as 'morality in paint', and as representing the highest ideal of painting in his day.
A superb draftsman, Greuze also created hundreds of fine drawings. Examples of his work can be found in the world's most famous collections such as the Louvre, London's Wallace Collection, the Edinburgh National Gallery and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Since the 1960s, when Patek Philippe re-launched the production of watches with enamel miniatures, only a handful of these masterpieces were created in collaboration with famous artists such as Suzanne Rohr or J.-L. Péter (see lot 273 in this auction). These watches were usually cased in the traditional openface style whereas only very few were finished as hunting cased watches.
The enamel of the present watch is signed by Mrs. Suzanne Rohr, one of the last artists able to perpetuate the supremely exacting art of miniature painting on enamel. Mrs. Rohr, who celebrated 35 years of collaboration with Patek Philippe in 2002, reserves her talent for the company. In her hands, the secret alchemy of the coloured enamels offers a second life of unequalled depth and finesse to some of the world's greatest art treasures.
The enamel miniature on the present watch is after Jean-Baptiste Greuze's work Boy in Red Waistcoat of which neither the date of creation nor its actual location are known.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)
French genre and portrait painter who studied at the Académie Royale and won recognition at the 1755 Salon with his "Blind Man Deceived". Greuze travelled in Italy and on his return painted a series of popular realistic pictures of a dramatic and moralizing character. His work was praised by Diderot as 'morality in paint', and as representing the highest ideal of painting in his day.
A superb draftsman, Greuze also created hundreds of fine drawings. Examples of his work can be found in the world's most famous collections such as the Louvre, London's Wallace Collection, the Edinburgh National Gallery and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.