Description: Gilt brass cylinder movement (41 x 35mm), 13 tooth brass escape, Graham-type banking. ‘Egg’ shaped plates, baluster pillars. Eccentric seconds work at 6. Lacking cock, regulator, side plate, dial plate, dial, motion work, chain, balance and balance spring. (A)
Provenance:
Ex private collection Ferdinand Lammot Belin, Washington DC, USA
Ferdinand Lammot Belin Sr. (1881 – 1961)
Ferdinand Lammot Belin, Sr., was an American international diplomat and spent part of his life in Istanbul and Peking, where he held diplomatic posts. While in Washington, he served at the White House during the Presidency of Herbert Hoover as Chief of the International Conference and Protocol Division, and then as Ambassador to Poland in 1932 – 1933. His son, Ferdinand Lammot ‘Peter’ Belin, Jr, was a survivor of the catastrophe of the zeppelin ‘Hindenburg’ in New Jersey in 1937. Berlin Sr. started to collect watches while in Peking from 1917 and possessed an impressive collection sold at Sotheby’s the 29.11.1979.
Ex private collection Winthrop Kellogg Edey, New York, USA
Winthrop Kellogg ‘Kelly’ Edey (18. 6. 1937 – 22. 2. 1999)
As the grandson of Morris W. Kellogg, an engineer who made millions designing and building oil refineries, not to mention the nation’s World War II atomic-bomb plants, Mr. Edey was relieved of the need to earn a living. Starting from 6 years of age his interest for watches and clocks flourished, he started then to take them apart and putting them back together. Apart from his diary and his lifelong interest for the Ancient Egyptian culture, Kelly Edey devoted his life to collecting and studying watches and clocks. He wrote several books on the subject, one about French clocks (1967). He shared his expertise as consultant for Christie’s (New York), the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and for the Time Museum in Rockford Illinois. 1982 he gave 39 pieces of the 60 he possessed along with his diaries to the Frick collection in New York. One diary entry of the 17th of January 1964 mentions Andy Warhol making a movie and pictures of him (screen tests for ‘The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys’).
Additional Info:
Only about 4 egg-shaped movements are known, two are cased (British Museum, London, Time Museum, Rockford, Ilinois (latter sold: ‘Masterpieces from the Time Museum’; Sotheby’s New York, June 2002, for 45’000$)).
Benjamin Gray started the manufacture of these irregular shaped watches before sharing the business with Justin Vulliamy in 1743 (A). The oldest version of this type of watch is not exactly egg shaped but more shaped like a shield. The shield and later the egg shape gives a watch, having a large second dial at ‘6’, a very elegant form and it draws the view to the large second hand suggesting that the watch is of highest precision. The manufacture of the shield or egg-shaped plates must have been done by hand, which is very laborious and difficult (B).
Antiquarian Horology 