• 鍍金紅寶石工字輪擒縱機芯 • 黃金內蓋印有品牌標誌及編號 • 偏心鍍銀錶盤，寶璣式數字，藍鋼指針 • 半透明藍色琺瑯及車床雕刻錶盤鑲鑽石，錶背蓋觸感指針鑲鑽石，錶圈鑲鑽石以便觸感時間 • 機芯及內蓋印有 Breguet No. 1056, 錶殼印有B1056, 1850 及工匠標記PBT、巴黎1789-1809年黃金印章 • 備寶璣錶鍊及鑰匙

* 拍品資料以英文圖錄為準。

Sold to Général Decamp for FF1680 on 19th January 1803
Sotheby's, 10th June 1993, lot 131

Please note that the movement has not been tested for the accuracy of its time keeping and therefore a service should be carried out in the near future at the buyer's expense. The movement is fully wound and is not running, tarnishing to the movement plate. Dial tarnished, hour hand bent. Possibly later dial. Small scratch to the enamel of both covers but overall in good condition. The coin edged band with tarnishing. This watch is a beautiful example of a Montre à tact.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. All dimensions in catalogue descriptions are approximate. Condition reports may not specify mechanical replacements or imperfections to the movement, case, dial, pendulum, separate base(s) or dome. Watches in water-resistant cases have been opened to examine movements but no warranties are made that the watches are currently water-resistant. Please note that we do not guarantee the authenticity of any individual component parts, such as wheels, hands, crowns, crystals, screws, bracelets and leather bands, since subsequent repairs and restoration work may have resulted in the replacement of original parts. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue. In particular, please note it is the purchaser's responsibility to comply with any applicable import and export matters, particularly in relation to lots incorporating materials from endangered species.NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

**Please be advised that bands made of materials derived from endangered or otherwise protected species (i.e. alligator and crocodile) are not sold with the watches and are for display purposes only. We reserve the right to remove these bands prior to shipping.

Important Notice regarding importation into the United States of Rolex watches
Sotheby's cannot arrange for the delivery of Rolex watches to the United States because U.S. laws restricts the import of Rolex watches. The buyer or a designated agent may collect the property in the country of sale."

The montre à tact watch was invented by Abraham-Louis Breguet and produced between 1800 and 1834. The present lot is a relatively early example. It is said that they were worn by fashionable young men who wished to know the time without the embarrassment of their host knowing their anxiety, as one could tell the time without taking the watch out of your pocket.
The tact hand to the front of the case is turned until it catches the dial hand with a small protection which prevents it from rotating further and leaves the tact hand at the correct time. The position of the hand is then determined by the touch pieces set at the edge of the case. When the front is opened a small dial is revealed for setting the mechanism to time. 

See Daniels, G., The Art of Breguet, p. 63

The Harcourt family have been at the centre of British life for an extraordinary length of time: whether as Oxfordshire landowners or at the centre of London life as courtiers to the Royal Family; whether as Ambassador or barrister; whether as Field Marshal or aesthete; whether as MP or garden designer; whether Chancellor of the Exchequer or Minister of Works. All have collected fine objects in one degౠree or another, this rare Breguet being a perfect example. A selection of objects are being offered for auction by Sotheby’s across a wide range of departments – please see online for further details.

The Harcourts of Stanton Harcourt and Nuneham Park, Oxfordshire

 ‘…✨ I thought my holidays were over for this summer, but Nuneham is so pleasant both indoors and outdoors that it is irresistib🤪le…’

 Sir Joshua Reynolds to George, 2^nd Earl Harcourt London, 18 September 1778

Sir Joshua wrote these words exactly a year and two days after the shocking death of the 1^st Earl Harcourt at his estate, Nuneham Park in Oxfordshire. Even before the event, his son and heir George Simon, Viscount Nuneham, had begun the first of a series of changes to the grounds which became the inspiration for ‘natural’ gardens to many mansion owners. The new Lord Harcourt, then forty-one, was a man of wide interests and learning who had travelled extensively. Surviving letters and contemporary memoirs give the impression of a scholastic, retiring, rather shy man who was well liked by the poets and other artists and friends with whom he and his countess spent their leisure hours. The long history of the Harcourts, which now stretches back a thousand years to the time when the De Harcourts first prospered in Normandy, would have been well known to him. His immediate lineage was hardly less ancient, the English branch of the family having been established long before Sir Robert De Harcourt’s appointment as a Sheriff🐻 of Warwickshire and Leicestershire at the beginning of the twelfth century. It was he who acquired the Manor of Stanton through his marriage to Millicent de Camville. In spite of many vicissitudes, including several episodes of decay and regeneration, Sir Robert’s descendants are still in residence.

Stanton Harcourt, the ‘very curious old place’ mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Our Old Home (1864), and Nuneham Park are neighbouring estates a few miles from the city of Oxford. Nuneham (then Newnham) was purchased from the Earl of Wemyss in 1710 by Simon Harcourt (1684-1720), a barrister, the son of Queen Anne’s Lord Chancellor, Simon, 1^st Viscount Harcourt (1661-1727). Another, earlier Simon Harcourt (1603?-1642), (the 1^st𒉰 Viscount Harcourt’s great grandfather) was himself a great-great-great grandson of Mary Boleyn, sister of Henry VIII’s unhappy queen.

Within hours of George I’s arrival in London in September 1714, Lord Chancellor Harcourt quit public life. He had had an extraordinary career. He began as a barrister in 1683 aged twenty-two, three years after marrying Rebecca, daughter of the Rev Thomas Clark. He served for a time as a Member of Parliament and then as Solicitor General from 1702 to 1707, during which time he directed the impeachment of John, Baron Somers (1701), assisted in prosecuting Daniel Defoe (1703), defended Henry Sacheverell (1710), and was instrumental in obtaining Viscount Bolingbroke’s pardon and the acquittal of Robert, Earl of Oxford. In 1710 he became Lord Keeper (later Chancellor). Less than a year afterwards he was created Baron Harcourt, having only months before changed his political allegiance from Tory to Whig. ‘He is a fair, lusty man, has been handsome… He has ♉so much learning and eloquence, and so sweet a d✱elivery, that he may not improperly be styled a second Cicero…,’ wrote a contemporary political commentator.

Stanton Harcourt, the family's chief seat and the place of Viscount Harcourt’s birth, had by this time fal♔len into disrepair, largely because of the neglect of his stepmother Lady Elizabeth Harcourt (widow of his father Sir Philip Harcourt) who did not die until July 1713. But even then Lord Harcourt, who had already built himself a comfortable if modest house at Cockenthorpe nearby, was disinclined to move. It was here towards the end of his life that he entertained Swift, Gay, Pope and other literary companions. There was a fine library and the dining parlour was panelled in oak, a gift from Queen Anne.

The early death of Lord Chancellor Harcourt’s only surviving son Simon in 1720 must have been a great disappointment, but he and his second wife, Lady Elizabeth&nbsಌp; (née  Spencer) , were devoted   to  his little grandson, also Simon (1714-77) known affectionately as 'Precious’.  The boy’s maternal grandfather was the author and diarist John Evelyn (1620-1706).

The Lord Chancellor’s grandson

Viscount Harcourt died at the family's London residence  in Cavendish Square where, it was said by a contemporary, ‘most of the Houses are very good, and inhabited by People of Quality'. Evelyn’s son, Sir John Evelyn, has left a vivid account of the end of this long and eventful life, having been called to the Viscount’s deathbed. Harcourt lingered several days and died on 29 July 1727 - he was buried at Stanton Harcourt church, The 2nd Viscount Harcourt was destined for an illustrious career. Finishing his education with four years’ sojourn abroad, during which he made a study of classical architecture, he returned home in time for his coming-of-age. The following year, 1735, h💎e became a Lord of the Bedchamber. He was with George II at the Battle of Dettingen (27 June 1743), and was created Viscount Nuneham and Earl Harcourt in 1749. As Governor to the Prince of Wales in 1751-52, his already close association with the royal family developed into a friendship which was warmly maintained in later years by his son and daughter-in-law.

Writing to Lord Harcourt from Saville House about his history lessons in August 1751, the young Prince observed that Richard II was a  poor  ruler: 'They were in  hopes  that  he  would  have  made  a  good King; but they  soon lost their  hopes, for he loved flatterers, who are the greatest serpents a Court can have..🅷.'.  With  the  sudden  death  of  George  II  at Kensington  Palace   on  25  October  1760  similar hopes were  generally fastened  on  the  Prince who now succeeded to the throne as George III. A year later  he  announced  his  intention   of  marrying  the Princess  Charlotte   Sophia,   second   daughter of Charles  Lewis  Frederick,  Duke  of  Mecklenburg- Strelitz, and he sent Lord Harcourt, furnished with a portrait in miniature ‘richly and most prettily set round with  diamonds’,  to  escort  her  to  England. The  date  of  the  marriage  was  settled  for  8 September  1761, a few days after his Lordship had been appointed Her Majesty’s Master  of  the  Horse. His daughter, Lady Elizabeth   Harcourt,   attended the ceremony as one of the Queen’s bridesmaids, 'dressed in white and silver ' and wearing a diamond coronet.

Fortunately the relationship between King  and courtier did not suffer when in 1764 the latter's son George Simon, L💃ord  Nuneham, then MP for St Alban’s,  voted   against   the  Government  upon   the question of Wilkes’s expulsion from the House of Commons. The Earl, who had not long accepted the appointment of Lord Chamberlain of the Queen’s household, was horrified by Nuneham’s apparent disrespect and wrote to the King accordingly. But he need  not have worried - George III  seems  to  have  put&🤪nbsp; it  down  to  a young man’s indiscretion.

Lord Harcourt's wife, Rebecca, to whom he had been married for nearly thirty years, died unexpectedly on 16 January 1765 while taking tea with a friend. Thereafter, the Earl threw himself into work, in 1768 accepting the appointment of Ambassador to Paris. He set out from Cavendish Square on 3 January 1769 and 🍬a week later was given his first audience with Louis XVI at Versailles.  As was usual for ambassadors at the time, the Earl went to France equipped with a service🦩 of silver, nearly seven thousand ounces of which had been paid for by the Crown.

Most of the service was supplied by his own goldsmith in London, the well-known firm of Parker & Wakelin.  Their ledgers survive in the Archive of Art and Design (Victoria & Albert Mus🧜eum), an inspection of which has been kindly granted to Sotheby's by their commercial descendants, Garrard & Co Ltd. It is clear from these records that Earl Harcourt had been a customer   for   some time;   we find, for instance, small items such as 'To mending a Cork Stopper [1s] '  and  'To  mendi🗹ng  an Epergne [5s] ’ in his account for 1766-67, and 'To boyling & doing up 2 coffee  pots [£1 2s 6d] ’ in January 1769. But it is the account of 13 March that year which deals with the plate which he took to Paris. It is long and detailed, the cost amounting to £3862 11s 2d for both new plate supplied and for repairs to old, as well as sundry expenses such as carriage paid ‘for Cartage to ye jewel Office D[itt] o back & Do to ye Inn [15s] ... To Cash pd for Matting & Cording 4 large Chests, Do 2 Smaller 20/6, 8 Padlocks 14/ [£1 14s 6d]'. 

The survival of Parker & Wakelin’s Workman’s Ledger for the period is useful in that it identifies the firm's suppliers. The out—working firms of Ansill & Gilbert and Thomas Pitts (both general plateworkers), Thomas Squire (cᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚutler), David Flennell & Son (silver salt cellar makers), Philip Norman (knife handle and spoon and  fork  maker) , and   the   silver   spoon   and   fork   makers   William    & Thomas Chawner and Isaac Callard are all mentioned as the manufacturers of Lord Harcourt’s silver. Although this is not the place for a detailed enquiry, it is interesting to find the amount of Parker & Wakelin's profits carefully recorded. Twelve ladles or ‘Olio Spoons' for instance were supplied by Philip Norman to the firm for £6 6s. In selling them to Lord Harcourt, Parker & Wakelin charged £15 18s 6d in addition to an extra £17 8s (or 15s and 14s each respectively) for making and gilding them.

Earl Harcourt’s return from Paris

Earl Harcourt’s ambassadorship tꩲo Paris came to an end in 1772 and in June that year he accepted the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland which, among other benefits, eventually yielded him seven gold boxes. According to one historian, he appears to have been sent there 'on account of his amiable character and easy disposition'. Then o🅠n 29 March 1776 he wrote to the Prime Minister Lord North:

‘After an absence of near three years and a half from my family and friends;  and  after  the fatigues of two of the most interesting sessions that have been known in Ireland; and in the sixty-third year of my age, I  own myself quite unequal  to  the  constant  care   and   solicitude that attend this responsible station. I am persuaded it is no less for his Majesty's interest, than for the comfort of my life,that I should be permitted to retire…’

His wish was granted and he returned and to Englan🐻d and to Nuneham to lead the life o🍨f a country gentleman.

Although he  had  spent  so  long  away  from  home, Earl Harcourt had begun to  lay  out  the  grounds and mansion at Nuneham during the mid-1750s. In fact, he had to sacrifice much of 𒈔the old house at Stanton Harcourt to provide enough stone for the new building, the local quarry being already fully occupied supplying the raw materials for another local landowner. But this was not before the village at Nuneham (which comprised some sixty cottages in addition to a church, parsonage and a🍸n inn) had been moved to a new location a mile away on the road between Oxford and Henley.

Countess Harcourt’s letters to their son Lord Nuneham, then travelling in Germany,   Italy and Switzerland, record the progress. In April 1756 she wrote of the elevation  for the proposed  house; in June she  told  of  a  'little jaunt' she had taken to Nuneham,  ‘which place, in my opinion, is always in beauty'; and less  than  a month later in July  1756 wrote,  'As we are very fond of seeing this work go on, we generally go to Newnham  ev’ry week...'. It is particularly  ironic,  therefore,  that  Lord  Harcourt should  have  died  there  so soon  after his  retirement in 1777. The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (19 September) in an ‘Extract of a letter from Oxford, Sept. 16 tells the story:

'I  am  sorry to acquaint  you  of  a  most melancholy accident which happened yesterday at Newnham...  the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Harcourt. His Lordship (Earl Harcourt)  went  out  for  a walk  in  his  park,  as he  frequently  did  about  noon...His Lordship in his walk near home was generally accompanied by a favourite dog only; the dog in running about, accidentally fell into this old well, which was quite overgrown with sedge, so as not to be discovered; His Lordship, with his usual humanity, hearing the cries of his favourite little animal, came to its relief, and in stooping to get out the dog, his Lordship fell into the well head foremost, where he stuck quite fast, in which manner he was found…’

News of the tragedy travelled fast, although was not received sympathetically in some quarters. The Rev William Mason in a letter to Horace Walpole, both friends of the new Earl Harcourt, who had not been particularly fond of his father, wrote on 23 September, ‘What an incꦐonsistent creature is man! Poor Lord Harcourt! I fear he was so good a courtier that he would not have hesitated a moment about giving his vote for scalping his brethren in Canada, and yet he died in the humane act of saving a dog from d𒅌rowning’.

In temperament the 2^nd Earl Harcourt was very different from his father. Whereas the latter had been ‘painstaking, dignified, decorous’ although ‘not exempt from the prevailing habit of excessive drinking’, the son was delicate, a lover of refined society and one who ‘affected French manners and fashions’. He and his wife, his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of 1^st Baron Vernon whom he had married in 1765, eventually transformed Nuneham into what the Drury Lane actress Jane Pope (1742-1818) once described as a place of ‘elegance, ease, & hospitality’. The poet William Mason was responsible for laying out the flower-garden where he and Lord Harcourt, according to Mavis Batey, ‘mingled wild and garden flowers in aggressively irregular beds, twined jasmine and woodbine round the trees, laced the winding path with… the periwinkle, and sprinkled birdseed to entice the linnets and ringdoves’ (Country Life, 12 September 1968). This arcadian scene late🎃r became familiar to a widဣer audience when a view of Nuneham (after an engraving by W. Cooke, 1811) was used to decorate the ‘Wild Rose’ pattern wares of a number of Staffordshire pottery manufacturers.

The King and Queen at Nuneham

In 1784 Countess Harcourt became a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. This was a significant appointment because Lord and Lady Harcourt had absented themselves in a marked manner from Court since the death of the 1^st Earl. This had arisen ‘owing to some slight’ which it was imagined had been passed upon him; in fact, George III had ignored his old Governor’s request (intimated as long ago as 1771) to be bestowed with the Order of the Garter. But the period of coolness over, this was the beginning of a sincere friendship between the Harcourts and the King and Queen. In September 1785 the 🍨royal couple with the Princes Ernest, Augustus and Adolphus and the princesses Charlotte, Augusta and Elizabeth visited Nuneham. The party had int🌱ended to return to Windsor the same day, but the weather was so good that the King, resolving to visit Oxford, decided that they should stay the night with Lord and Lady Harcourt.

The trip to Oxford the following morning was a great success. Their Majesties and the Princes and Princesses, accompanied by the Harcourts, visited several of the colleges and the King conferred a knighthood on John Treacher, the Mayor. In its October issue The Gentleman’s Magazine reported that during the day they visited theಌ public schools, entering ‘at the eastern gates, and passing through the Divinity School were ushered into the Theatre, where the Heads of Houses, Doctors in the different Facilities, &c. were assembled. In the area of this magnificent room, chairs being placed for that purpose, their Majesties and the Royal Family were seated for some time; and the Vice Chancellor with the Heads of Houses, the Hon. Mr. Matthew of Corpus Christi,𒀰 and the Proctors, had the honour of kissing their Majesties hands. At their entrance, and during this ceremony, Dr. Hayes, Professor of Music, entertained their Majesties with several overtures on the organ: whilst the ladies, and other company, with which the galleries were crowded, had the happiness of being spectators… Bells were incessantly ringing from the arrival of the Royal Family to their departure. At night the city was grandly illuminated, and a general joy appeared in every countenance’. Meanwhile, the King and Queen returned to Nuneham where they were treated to ‘an elegant cold collation’ to the sound of martial music played by the band of the Oxfordshire militia. As evening gathered they departed for Windsor to the strains of ‘God save the King’.

The attachment between the royal family and the Harcourts which was sealed by this visit was both genuine and long-lasting. Many letters survive as proof of this, particularly some of three hundred plus which Lady Harcourt received from Princess Elizabeth (1770-1840). Indeed, it was the latter who𓄧, with her sister Princess Augusta, gave to Earl Harcourt in 1803 a gold snuff box in the form of a tortoise. Lady Harcourt has also left an intimate account of the King’s illness of 1788-89. As regards Lady Harcourt’s relationship with the Queen, whose reputation at large was that of a distant, remote figure, the following extract from a letter written by Charlotte on 17 December 1786 will speak for itself:

‘… I have of late seen several ladies just returned from Paris, some very much improved in looks, & others far otherwise. Mrs. Eden by wearing an Enormous Quantity of Rouge looks much more pleasing, & Mrs. Goldburn, by Hiding Her Fine Complexion, on the Contrary loses by that Ornament; the latter is quite Formidable by Three immense Feathers, which so directly run into my Eyes when she was presented, I was under the necessity of drawing myself back in order to avoid Mischief, & I rejoiced a little in lady Claremont’s distress who presented Her…’

With the deaths of Elizabeth, Countess Harcourt in 1826 and then the 3^rd Earl Harcourt in 1830, Nuneham Park and the remainder of the family estates and residuary property passed to Edward Venables-Vernon, afterwards Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York (1757-1847). He was the third son of George Vernon, 3^rd Baron Vernon (1708-1780) by his third wife Martha, granddaughter of Lord Chancellor Simon Harcourt and sister of 1^st Earl Harcourt.

Many improvements and changes were made to both house and garden – and by the time of her visit the recently crowned Queen Victoria, like Sir Joshua Reynolds and so many other visitors to Nuneham Park, found the atmosphere of the place irresistible. She stayed there with Prince Albert on the occasion of his receiving an honorary degree at Ox🎀ford. The Harcourts continued to occupy high office for the rest of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century – William Harcourt was caught out by the death duties tax that he had introduced as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1895, and his son Lewis was an MP and cabinet minister in Herbert Asquith’s war government. Harcourts continued to collect, though not at the pace of their predecessors, and to enjoy Nuneham until it was requisitioned for the RAF in 1942 and subsequently sold to the University of Oxford. The family now live at their older estate at Stanton Harcourt.

Much of the information for the foregoing account has been taken from The Harcourt Papers, vols. I-XIII, edited by Edward William Harcourt (1825-1891) and published privately in 1880 in an edition of fifty copies. See also Country Life, 5 September 1968, 10 October 1974 and 3 January 1985.