18’’’ extra flat movement, lever escapement, decoratively pearled main plate, damascened bridges, jewelled to the centre, bi-metallic compensation balance, blued steel balance spring with overcoil, signed and numbered Breguet 1116

silvered dial with vertical satin finish, linear rectangular calendar apertures for day, date and month, curved trapeze-form aperture for hours with sector aperture for minutes above, signed Breguet 1116

18ct white gold Osmior Murat case, chamfered bezels, nib for calendar corrector beneath bezel at 4 o’clock, locator pins to front and back bezels, case back interior with poinçon de maître hammer head 154, Breguet sponsor’s mark GB with a spring between in oval cartouche, numbered B 1116, case back and inner rim with Swiss Helvetia head assay marks, case back, pendant and bow with French owl import assay marks

Measurements

diameter 45mm

depth 9mm

weight 65.3g

Accompaniments

with a Breguet Certificate No. 4592 dated 27 January 2020 and a Breguet 250th anniversary certificate

1927 Cortlandt Bishop

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Sotheby’s Geneva, Masterworks of Time Part III, 3-16 June 2020, lot 73.

The display of time through apertures cut into the front of a watch case has a long and rich history, though it became especially fashionable during the Art Deco period. This popularity was due in part to the novel way the format could be integrated into and complement the design of the fine, slim dress watches of the era. Although such “window” forms of indication were equally well suited to calendar displays, jump hour watches combined with calendars are rare, and those incorporating a perpetual calendar are rarer still. This is almost certainly attributable to the high cost of production. To illustrate this point, the present watch was priced at 24,000 Francs — three times the cost of a white gold wandering jump hour watch by Breguet sold in the same year, 1927.

Cortlandt Bishop (1870–1935) was a prominent New Yorker known for his varied interests, including aviation, automobiles, and art. His business activities were equally diverse, ranging from a real estate portfolio with prime holdings on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan to his ownership of America’s largest auction house, the American Art Association–Anderson Galleries, the predecessor of Sotheby’s. Under Bishop’s stewardship, Major Hiram H. Parke and Otto Bernet were appointed to run the firm.

After Bishop’s death in 1935, Parke and Bernet left to establish Parke-Bernet Galleries. In 1938 Parke-Bernet purchased the American Art Association–Anderson Galleries from Bishop’s estate, and in 1968 Sotheby’s acquired Parke-Bernet, becoming Sotheby Parke-Bernet.

A very similar example, numbered 1622 and sold in 1930, was offered at Chayette, 13 June 1984, lot 91, reappearing again at Christie’s Geneva, 10 November 2014, lot 390.