.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
ABRAHAM-LOUIS BREGUET
Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) is one of the most celebrated and innovative horologers of all time. Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, he was sent to work with a watchmaker in Les Verrières in 1762. By the end of the year he had moved close to the French court at Versailles. After some two years he moved to Paris, where he benefited from his relationship with the great clockmakers Ferdinand Berthoud (1727-1807) and Jean-Antoine Lépine (1720-1814), before setting up business in 1775 at Quai de l'Horloge in Île de la Cité. The master clock and watchmaker George Daniels states of Breguet: 'During the four hundred years that horology has been accepted as a separate art only a dozen or so men have made a positive contribution to its direction of progress. Included in this little group of masters is the illustrious name of Abraham-Louis Breguet, the arch-mechanicien in an age of mechanics. His contribution was as brilliant as it was original' (Daniels, 1975, op cit., p. 3). Breguet was the originator of the carriage clock as we know it today, which he referred to by several different names, including Pendule Portative, Pendule de Carrosse, Pendule de Voyage and Pendule Portique. Other carriage clocks by Breguet with the same Empire case are known, for example one acquired by Marie-Christine de Bourbon-Sicile, the Queen of Spain, no. 3347, in 1831 (see Derek Roberts, Carriage and other Travelling Clocks, Schiffer, 1993, p. 29).
COLONEL COOKE (1768–1837)
Colonel Cooke (or Cook), who is recorded as having acquired a number of important pieces from Breguet between 1814 and 1822, must be Major-General Sir George Cooke KCB (1768–1837) of Harefield Park, Middlesex. Cooke had a distinguished military career and lost his right arm at the Battle of Waterloo.
From a military family, his mother, Penelope Boyer, was the daughter of an Admiral and his brothers were General Henry Frederick Cooke (private secretary to the Duke of York) and the naval officer Edward Cooke. In 1813, after posts in Cadiz, Cooke went to Holland with the Brigade of Guards, participated in the ill-fated Siege of Bergen op Zoom and was described as a prudent and humane commander. In 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo and on Wellington's staff, Cooke took a shot to his shoulder, which had flown within a foot of Captain Nixon’s head. Cooke’s arm was amputated and he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 22 June 1815 and a Knight of St George of Russia. Fermont-Barnes, in his recently published analysis of the Battle of Waterloo, describes this tragedy as evidence of the active role senior members of Wellington’s staff took in the action on the field. (See G. Fremont-Barnes, Waterloo 1815: The British Army's Day of Destiny, Gloucestershire, 2014). Indeed, Colonel Cooke is depicted directly beside the Duke of Wellington, in the thick of the battle in Jan Willem Pieneman’s The Battle of Waterloo, 1824 at the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-1115), (see detail reproduced here), head studies for which are at Apsley House, London. Cooke died unmarried in 1837 at the family seat, Harefield Park.
COLONEL COOKE’S PURCHASES FROM BREGUET
No. 1670. Certificate No. 2581. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 5 April 1814 for Fr. 4800. Watch with gold case, engine-turned, silver dial, steel hands, indicator for how much wound, seconds dial, two barrels, thermometer. A "perpetuelle" watch of first-class construction. Lever escapement, compensated balance, ruby and sapphire holes. Probably the thinnest "perpetuelle" watch made. See Sir David Salomons, Breguet 1747-1823, London, 1921, p. 53.
No. 2801. Certificate No. 2679. The present lot, sold to Colonel Cook [sic], 18 March 1815 for Fr. 4,000.
No. 3629. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 7 October 1822 for Fr. 4,800. Carriage Clock in ‘hump back’ case.. Ex. Col. S.E. Prestige Esq. Acquired by the British Museum in 1969 (Museum no. 1969,0303.3). See Emmanuel Breguet, Breguet - Watchmakers since 1775, pp. 266-7, illustrated.
No. 3893. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 22 March 1822. A gold pocket watch with Montré à Tact front. The Property of a Distinguished Collector; Sotheby’s, London, 28 September 2006, lot 22 and now in the Breguet Collection.
Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) is one of the most celebrated and innovative horologers of all time. Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, he was sent to work with a watchmaker in Les Verrières in 1762. By the end of the year he had moved close to the French court at Versailles. After some two years he moved to Paris, where he benefited from his relationship with the great clockmakers Ferdinand Berthoud (1727-1807) and Jean-Antoine Lépine (1720-1814), before setting up business in 1775 at Quai de l'Horloge in Île de la Cité. The master clock and watchmaker George Daniels states of Breguet: 'During the four hundred years that horology has been accepted as a separate art only a dozen or so men have made a positive contribution to its direction of progress. Included in this little group of masters is the illustrious name of Abraham-Louis Breguet, the arch-mechanicien in an age of mechanics. His contribution was as brilliant as it was original' (Daniels, 1975, op cit., p. 3). Breguet was the originator of the carriage clock as we know it today, which he referred to by several different names, including Pendule Portative, Pendule de Carrosse, Pendule de Voyage and Pendule Portique. Other carriage clocks by Breguet with the same Empire case are known, for example one acquired by Marie-Christine de Bourbon-Sicile, the Queen of Spain, no. 3347, in 1831 (see Derek Roberts, Carriage and other Travelling Clocks, Schiffer, 1993, p. 29).
COLONEL COOKE (1768–1837)
Colonel Cooke (or Cook), who is recorded as having acquired a number of important pieces from Breguet between 1814 and 1822, must be Major-General Sir George Cooke KCB (1768–1837) of Harefield Park, Middlesex. Cooke had a distinguished military career and lost his right arm at the Battle of Waterloo.
From a military family, his mother, Penelope Boyer, was the daughter of an Admiral and his brothers were General Henry Frederick Cooke (private secretary to the Duke of York) and the naval officer Edward Cooke. In 1813, after posts in Cadiz, Cooke went to Holland with the Brigade of Guards, participated in the ill-fated Siege of Bergen op Zoom and was described as a prudent and humane commander. In 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo and on Wellington's staff, Cooke took a shot to his shoulder, which had flown within a foot of Captain Nixon’s head. Cooke’s arm was amputated and he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 22 June 1815 and a Knight of St George of Russia. Fermont-Barnes, in his recently published analysis of the Battle of Waterloo, describes this tragedy as evidence of the active role senior members of Wellington’s staff took in the action on the field. (See G. Fremont-Barnes, Waterloo 1815: The British Army's Day of Destiny, Gloucestershire, 2014). Indeed, Colonel Cooke is depicted directly beside the Duke of Wellington, in the thick of the battle in Jan Willem Pieneman’s The Battle of Waterloo, 1824 at the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-1115), (see detail reproduced here), head studies for which are at Apsley House, London. Cooke died unmarried in 1837 at the family seat, Harefield Park.
COLONEL COOKE’S PURCHASES FROM BREGUET
No. 1670. Certificate No. 2581. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 5 April 1814 for Fr. 4800. Watch with gold case, engine-turned, silver dial, steel hands, indicator for how much wound, seconds dial, two barrels, thermometer. A "perpetuelle" watch of first-class construction. Lever escapement, compensated balance, ruby and sapphire holes. Probably the thinnest "perpetuelle" watch made. See Sir David Salomons, Breguet 1747-1823, London, 1921, p. 53.
No. 2801. Certificate No. 2679. The present lot, sold to Colonel Cook [sic], 18 March 1815 for Fr. 4,000.
No. 3629. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 7 October 1822 for Fr. 4,800. Carriage Clock in ‘hump back’ case.. Ex. Col. S.E. Prestige Esq. Acquired by the British Museum in 1969 (Museum no. 1969,0303.3). See Emmanuel Breguet, Breguet - Watchmakers since 1775, pp. 266-7, illustrated.
No. 3893. Sold to Colonel Cooke, 22 March 1822. A gold pocket watch with Montré à Tact front. The Property of a Distinguished Collector; Sotheby’s, London, 28 September 2006, lot 22 and now in the Breguet Collection.