Dating to c.1803, it was previously owned by Sir William
Gibson-Craig who had bought it from Robert Bryson's son. A letter
written in 1877 by an evidently single-minded Sir William states it
had taken him 40 years to persuade Bryson Jnr. to sell it to him.
The only example of its kind thought to have been made in Scotland,
it fetched £40,000.
While clocks, barometers and chronometers were the order of the
day for Christie's July horological sales, the auctioneers'
attention was focused on watches the month before, with just shy of
400 lots offered by their South Kensington rooms (19.5/12% buyer's
premium) on June 23. The wristwatches dominated the sale in terms
of content, but some of the more expensive entries failed to find
buyers and it was the smaller and earlier pocketwatch selection
that provided most of the day's best-sellers.
Topping the bill as predicted at £32,000 was a rare London-made
cylinder watch fitted with a sweep centre seconds hands dated to
c.1800, signed Jno. Kenebel Frith Street, Soho and numbered 1454.
The watch was contained in an attractive gold case bordered with
split pearls and enamelled to the cover with a pastoral scene
entitled Evening after an engraving by Conte that was particularly
well preserved. The price compares with the SFr80,000 (£33,475)
paid for an identical watch numbered 1455 sold from the Sandberg
collection by Antiquorum in 2001.
But the sale also saw strong prices achieved for some plainer
examples that relied principally on good makers and complex
horology for their attractions. A case in point was the 15ct
gold-cased duplex pocket watch pictured below right, one of four
watches entered by an anonymous nobleman, all of which were notable
for their particularly crisp condition, said Christie's Oliver
Saunders. This example, which was contained in an engine-turned and
armorial engraved case, had a movement by the renowned maker
Benjamin Vulliamy (fl. 1781-1820), clockmaker to George III. With
its sophisticated array of functions including dumb quarter repeat,
centre seconds and temperature compensation curb, in Mr Saunder's
view this was a "bells and whistles" model and, in addition to its
fine condition, came with a period mahogany fitted box. It duly
achieved a double-estimate price of £15,500 tendered by a
dealer.
From rolling balls to bells and whistles
ANOTHER of the top-priced clocks to feature at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer's premium) on July 2 was this Regency rolling ball skeleton timepiece pictured right, made in Edinburgh by Robert Bryson after the model by Sir William Congreve, the inventor of the rolling ball clock.