Simon Bartam/ Reinhold Vasters

A LARGE AND IMPRESSIVE ASTRONOMICAL WATCH IN LATER CUSTOM MADE ROCK CRYSTAL CASE WITH DECORATIVE GOLD AND ENAMEL MOUNTS MOVEMENT AND DIAL CIRCA 1635, CASE 19TH CENTURY

• Movement: gilded oval full plate, verge escapement, decoratively pierced and floral engraved pinned-on balance cock, plain flat two-arm steel balance, wheel and click set-up, fusee and gut line, pierced tapered pillars, the backplate with decoratively engraved border of flowers and foliage, signed Simon Bartam, Fecit
• Dial: gilded, the ground engraved with flowers and foliage, upper dial with central revolving disc indicating date via a blued steel bug, turned blued steel hand indicating month with corresponding signs of the Zodiac, lower dial with Roman numerals, half hour divisions and centred with lakeside scene featuring a pair of swans and a townscape behind, all heightened with red wax, blued steel hand, fan-form aperture indicating days of the week with corresponding allegorical figures, three apertures to the right for moon-phases with time of moon rise above and planetary sign below
• Case: later rock crystal multi-faceted hexagonal case with gold mounts heightened with opaque white and translucent and opaque blue enamels, similarly decorated substantial fixed pendant and terminal
length including pendant and terminal 92.5mm

Provenance:
Carl Marfels Collection
Edward Hornby Collection
George Daniels Collection
Sotheby's Geneva, 26 November 1982, lot 40