• chased vari-colored gold figures balancing on a bow-shaped see-saw, centered by a  pedestal topped by cupid strumming a lyre and chased with a flaming heart, a flaming torch on the stepped base, enamel background of a classical garden, colonnade with waterfall, the case enameled with vases of flowers on translucent red ground, with blue enamel spaced geometric motifs, the hinged back with gold cuvette of conforming form • the movement in shield-form, brass plates, single mainspring powering the pin and barrel music and the automaton, activated at will by a slide located top right of pendant • the bezels and band decorated with neo-classical motifs in tones of red, white and blue enamel •  the reverse fitted with a later enamel miniature of a couple in a classical garden • accompanied by an associated gold chain with gold and enamel sliding links and a fitted leather box.

Farouk I, King of Egypt 1952
Sotheby & Co., The Palace Collections of Egypt, Koubbeh Palace, Cairo, March 10, 1954, lot 521
Prominent American Family until present

Sotheby & Co., The Palace Collections of Egypt, Koubbeh Palace, Cairo, March 10, 1954, lot 521, p. 91, plate 24 top left
Alfred Chapuis, Edmund Droz, Automata, pp. 176, 178, fig. 196, 1958

The present piece is illustrated in Alfred Chapuis and Edmund Droz, Automata, 1958, p. 178, fig. 196. It is interesting to note the facing page illustrates two lots that made up part of the current collection: the double scent flask known as the “The Cherry Pickers” and the snuff box known as “Blind Man’s Bluff.”  Both were sold at Sotheby’s New York, June 2015, Swiss Mechanical Marvels Part I, lots 108 and 106.

The current lot  was one of ☂two shield form automatons in the Farouk sale, the current piece formerly lot 521 in the 1954 sale and then lot 523 resold at Sotheby’s Gene🐷va, May 2010, lot 90.  The current lot has the added feature of music; the shield sold in 2010 was automaton only.

For a note on Piguet and Capt, see lot 83.