Lot 355

Gudin à Paris, 43 mm, 59 g, circa 1770
An ornamental gold enamel verge pocket watch studded with diamonds
Case: 18k gold and polychrome enamel, diamond-set bezel and thumbpiece, case maker's punch mark "PBC". Dial: enamel and diamonds. Movm.: full plate movement, chain/fusee, three-arm steel balance.
The back is decorated with an exquisitely painted scene showing a couple at a table, playing music. The bezels are embellished with polychrome "basse-taille" diamonds and flowers.
French maker Jacques-Jérôme Gudin (1732-1789) was born in 1732 in Paris, he was the son of Jacques Gudin and Henriette Le Noir, the daughter of jeweller Pierre Le Noir. Gudin became a master on May 12, 1762 and worked at first at the Quai des Orfevres; in 1783 he moved to the Rue St Honoré. He did work for the Prince of Conti, the Princess of Monaco and the Duke of Choiseul. Jacques Jérôme Gudin died in Paris in 1789.
Timepieces made by Gudin are part of the collections at Windsor Castle, the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon in Dresden and in the National Museum in Stockholm.