92nd Auction
2015/11/14
Lot 497
Allen Walker, London, Movement No. 889, 47 mm, 89 g, circa 1783
A fine, rare pair-cased verge pocket watch with "repoussé" decoration "Chryses begging for his daughter from Agamemnon"
Case: outer case - gold, Repoussé in high relief depicting a classical scene from Homer's Iliad; engraved and chased volutes and scrollwork, large lateral hinge. Inner case - gold, polished, case maker's punch mark "RP" (possibly Richard Pellman of Clerkenwell), seven-piece hinge. Dial: enamel, radial Roman hours, gold Louis XVI hands. Movm.: full plate movement, keywind, firegilt, signed, screwed on floral decorations, chain/fusee, square baluster pillars, three-arm steel balance, fine florally engraved and pierced balance bridge with coronet, winged hour glass and profile portrait of Chronos.
A similar watch is illustrated in "The Art of the Gold Chaser in Eighteenth-Century London" by Richard Edgcumbe, Oxford 2000, ill. 26a. The motif is from a print by Cornelis van Caukercken, made from a 1660 engraving by Abraham van Diepenbeeck. Today it is held at the British Museum in London.
Chryses
During the Trojan War, Agamemnon took Chryses' daughter Chryseis as a war prize and when Chryses attempted to ransom her, refused to return her. Chryses prayed to Apollo, and he, in order to defend the honor of his priest, sent a plague sweeping through the Greek armies, and Agamemnon was forced to give Chryseis back in order to end it. The significance of Agamemnon's actions lies not in his kidnapping Chryseis (such abductions were commonplace in ancient Greece), but in his refusal to release her upon her father's request.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryses, as of 09/15/2015.
A fine, rare pair-cased verge pocket watch with "repoussé" decoration "Chryses begging for his daughter from Agamemnon"
Case: outer case - gold, Repoussé in high relief depicting a classical scene from Homer's Iliad; engraved and chased volutes and scrollwork, large lateral hinge. Inner case - gold, polished, case maker's punch mark "RP" (possibly Richard Pellman of Clerkenwell), seven-piece hinge. Dial: enamel, radial Roman hours, gold Louis XVI hands. Movm.: full plate movement, keywind, firegilt, signed, screwed on floral decorations, chain/fusee, square baluster pillars, three-arm steel balance, fine florally engraved and pierced balance bridge with coronet, winged hour glass and profile portrait of Chronos.
A similar watch is illustrated in "The Art of the Gold Chaser in Eighteenth-Century London" by Richard Edgcumbe, Oxford 2000, ill. 26a. The motif is from a print by Cornelis van Caukercken, made from a 1660 engraving by Abraham van Diepenbeeck. Today it is held at the British Museum in London.
Chryses
During the Trojan War, Agamemnon took Chryses' daughter Chryseis as a war prize and when Chryses attempted to ransom her, refused to return her. Chryses prayed to Apollo, and he, in order to defend the honor of his priest, sent a plague sweeping through the Greek armies, and Agamemnon was forced to give Chryseis back in order to end it. The significance of Agamemnon's actions lies not in his kidnapping Chryseis (such abductions were commonplace in ancient Greece), but in his refusal to release her upon her father's request.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryses, as of 09/15/2015.
Sold
estimated
2.800—4.000 €
Price realized
3.400 €