AUDEMARS PIGUET - Lot 343

AUDEMARS PIGUET SAUTANTE TIME Produced circa 1926 Art Deco period 18K (750) white gold Lépine pocket watch with hour window and digital minute display. Case: round, flat, smooth reverse with flattened edges. Dial: silvered, jumping hour aperture at noon and sector aperture for minutes. Movement: mechanical, lever escapement, cal. 17 SVF, faux cotes de Genève decoration, compensated bimetallic balance, flat balance-spring, 19 jewels, signed Audemars, Piguet & Co, Brassus & Genève, Swiss. Numbered 34636. Dial, case and movement signed. Numbered 34636 (case and movement). Diameter: 44mm Gross weight: 46.44g According to the Audemars Piguet Archives, the watch was sold in Paris on December 17, 1929. We would like to thank Mr. Raphaël Balestra, Audemars Piguet Heritage and Archives Department, for his kind collaboration. Bibliography: A similar model is shown in GL. Brunner, Ch. Pfeiffer-Beli, M.K. Wehrli, Audemars Piguet, le maître de l'horlogerie, Le Brassus, Switzerland, 1993, p. 86. It was the French watchmaker Antoine Blondeau who invented this mechanism and, around 1830, produced a pocket watch for Louis-Philippe, King of the French. Numerous versions of this invention can be found in the antique collections of most of the major watchmakers, and at around the same time, during the Art Deco period, on pocket watches by Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Breguet and Vacheron Constantin. This style of display was also particularly fashionable on wristwatches, fitting in perfectly with the slim, elegant watch designs of the period: Audemars Piguet made its first wristwatch with a digital jumping-hour display in 1924, Cartier in 1928 with the Tank and Rolex with the Prince Brancard...