92nd Auction

2015/11/14

Lot 344

Mercier & Reynaud à Genève, Case No. 4623, 43 mm, 60 g, circa 1848
An exquisite, thin hunting case quarter repeating pocket watch with duplex escapement of unique German Royal provenance with velvet and silk-lined box
Case: 18k gold, polished, reeded band, the front cover engraved with the Royal crest of Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, the back side engraved with crowned "MS" monogram, inner lid engraved with date "24. Dec. 1848" and crown over "GM", numbered and signed gold dome, slide for repeating mechanism. Dial: enamel, radial Roman numerals, gold Breguet hands. Movm.: bridge movement, keywind, frosted, gilt, 2 hammers / 2 gongs, steel escape wheel, gold screw compensation balance.
Mercier, Geneva: winner of a Prize Medal at the 1851 Great Exhibition, and known to have sold watches to the English Royal Family.
Ernest Augustus I (1771–1851)
Ernest Augustus I was King of Hanover from 20 June 1837 until his death. Ernest Augustus was born at Buckingham House, now part of Buckingham Palace, on 5 June 1771. He was the fifth son and eighth child of George III, who eleven years before his birth had inherited the thrones of two kingdoms, Great Britain and Ireland, and also that of the Electorate of Hanover, still part of the Holy Roman Empire. As a fifth son, initially Ernest seemed unlikely to become a monarch, but Salic Law, which barred women from the succession, applied to the succession in Hanover, and none of his older brothers had any legitimate sons. Therefore, when in 1837 his niece, Victoria, became Queen of Britain and Ireland, ending the personal union between the British Isles and Hanover that had existed since 1714, Ernest became King of Hanover, which had been raised to a kingdom after the end of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1799, he was created Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale. Although his marriage in 1815 to the twice-widowed Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz met with the disapproval of his mother, Queen Charlotte, it proved a happy one.
The King died on 18 November 1851 after an illness of about a month.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover, as of 07/24/2015.

estimated
7.00010.000 €
Price realized
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