I · The Maker/II · The Object/III · The Record/IV · Acquisition
Room I · The Maker
Lattes Frères & Cie were the Geneva house of the Lattes brothers, a family from Cuneo settled in Alexandria, whose shop on the Mouski in Cairo supplied the Khedivial court. The Geneva branch, on the boulevard James Fazy, worked largely for Egypt, Turkey and India, and its recorded watches are mostly complicated: double-movement sidereal watches, grande sonnerie repeaters, calendar chronographs and automata.
The Object
A Geneva column-wheel chronograph by Lattes Frères, a house better known in Cairo, cased in French 18ct gold and sold in Paris in the 1880s.
A large gold hunter of the 1880s, 52.9 mm across, with plain polished covers and a quiet exterior: a fluted crown, a round bow and two small pushers set into the band at twelve and six. The front cover springs open cleanly. The only ornament is lettering. Under the front cover, the bezel carries the Paris retailer's name in engraved capitals around its full circle, framing the dial.
The dial is laid out for timing. Black Roman hours sit inside an outer track divided into fifths of a second and numbered every five. The subsidiary seconds at six are sunk into the enamel, which keeps the running seconds below the long centre hand as it sweeps. The hour and minute hands are gold spades, and the chronograph hand is a fine steel needle that reaches the very edge of the track. The enamel is bright white, the black printing crisp down to the fifth-second divisions, and the signature, Lattes Frères & Cie, Genève, is set small in black capitals under twelve.
The chronograph is the plain early form. The pusher at twelve starts the hand, stops it and returns it to zero; the one at six sets the time. There is no minute counter, which leaves the dial uncluttered and gives the centre hand the whole face. Behind the back cover the movement sits under a glazed inner cover rather than a solid one, and the column wheel and polished steel levers are visible through it.
The watch was made in one country and sold in another, and both are written on it. In the 1880s the Besançon houses cased Geneva movements in French gold for the Paris trade, and this is one of them. Movement and dial are Geneva work. The case is French 18ct gold, assayed in the provinces and struck with the horse head on the pendant, and the bezel opens with Horlogerie Française. The maker's monogram, LFC, is engraved inside both covers, and the retailer's name runs around the glass.
The marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.
Beneath the case
Open each drawer to look closer
Mark 1
Horse head
The French mark for 18ct gold assayed in the provinces, struck on the pendant.
18ct gold
France
Mark 2
LFC monogram
The maker's monogram, LFC, engraved inside both covers with the case number 1528xx.
Lattes Frères
Case 1528xx
Mark 3
The retailer's bezel
Horlogerie Française, Les Successeurs de Savoye Frères & Cie, Grâa, Dufour & Neyret Frères, Paris, engraved all round the bezel.
Paris
Retailer
- AColumn wheelThe column wheel and polished steel levers are visible through the glazed inner cover.
- BPusher at twelveStarts the chronograph hand, stops it and returns it to zero.
- CPusher at sixSets the time; the movement is pin-set.
- DCut bimetallic balanceA nickel bar calibre with a cut bimetallic balance, signed Lattes Frères & Cie, Genève.
Case
Excellent
18ct gold, plain polished, light surface wear consistent with age. The front cover springs open cleanly.
Dial
Excellent
White enamel, clean and bright.
Movement
Excellent
Runs, winds and sets correctly. The chronograph starts, stops and returns to zero.
Crystal
Excellent
Clear, as is the glazed inner cover.
Crown
Excellent
Fluted gold crown, winds smoothly.
52.9
This watch
25.75
€2 coin
A €2 coin is 25.75 mm. This case is more than two and a half times its area.
Room III · The Record
The Paris retailer's name, engraved around the bezel.
Retailed in Paris by Grâa, Dufour & Neyret, successors of Savoye Frères, in the 1880s.
The bezel is engraved all round: Horlogerie Française, Les Successeurs de Savoye Frères & Cie, Grâa, Dufour & Neyret Frères, Paris. Savoye Frères, founded in Besançon in 1794, passed in 1880 to a partnership of Alfred Graa, Swiss consul at Besançon, with Dufour and the Neyret brothers in Paris. The firm traded under this name from 6 boulevard de Sébastopol through the 1880s, won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1889 and became Neyret Frères in the 1890s. Dial and movement are signed Lattes Frères & Cie, Genève, and the LFC monogram and case number 1528xx are engraved inside both covers.
- Maker
- Lattes Frères & Cie, Genève
- Retailer
- Les Successeurs de Savoye Frères & Cie (Grâa, Dufour & Neyret Frères), Paris
- Model
- Column-wheel chronograph
- Date
- C.1885
- Case
- 18ct gold hunter with glazed inner cover
- Diameter
- 52.9 mm
- Movement
- Manual winding, pin-set, nickel bar calibre, column-wheel chronograph, cut bimetallic balance
- Dial
- White enamel, Roman numerals, 1/5 second track, recessed subsidiary seconds
- Complications
- Chronograph
- Hallmarks
- French horse head (18ct gold)
- Case number
- 1528xx
- Country
- Switzerland (movement), France (case)
The Estate Collection
Room IV · Acquisition
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Lattes Frères Hunter Chronograph
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