Mallet and attributed to Henry Capt. A small, rare and unusual 18K pink gold and pearl-set openface musical cylinder watch, made for the Chinese Market
Mallet and attributed to Henry Capt. A small, rare and unusual 18K pink gold and pearl-set openface musical cylinder watch, made for the Chinese Market

SIGNED L. MALLET À PARIS, CIRCA 1820

細節
Mallet and attributed to Henry Capt. A small, rare and unusual 18K pink gold and pearl-set openface musical cylinder watch, made for the Chinese Market
Signed L. Mallet à Paris, circa 1820
Gilt-finished cylinder movement, plain three arm brass balance, musical pin barrel, gilt cuvette, engine-turned gilt dial, Breguet numerals on blank chapter ring, circular case, pearl-set bezel and rim, ribbed band, engine-turned sunburst decorated hinged back, music activated by depressing a button in the pendant, cuvette signed
37 mm. diam.

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拍品專文

The present watch is a rare example of a musical watch, distinguished by the small size of its movement incorporating the musical mechanism, most certainly the work of Henry Capt, renowned for musical watches and automata of extraordinary quality.

It impressively illustrates the ultimate development of Capt's work by using a Lépine-style movement with free standing barrel while maintaining the musical pin-drum at a time when most of the other Geneva makers were using the pin-disc or pin-cylinder version.

Henry-Daniel Capt (1773 - ?)
Henry-Daniel or Henri Capt, together with Isaac Piguet and Philippe Meylan, was one of the leading manufacturers of musical automata at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. He specialized in the production of complicated watches, musical and automaton timepieces also for the Chinese market. Around 1789 Capt settled in Geneva and worked for several renowned companies such as Jaquet-Droz, Godet, Leschot and his brother-in-law Isaac Daniel Piguet.

When Piguet left to enter a partnership with Philippe-Samuel Meylan in 1811, Henry Capt continued to work first on his own, later with his son Charles Henry, until around 1830, when he joined forces with Aubert and son, Place Bel-Air in Geneva.