Clearly from the 1920s, not quite art nouveau -- but at least Jugendstil inspired.
I would totally go for it if it were priced ... oh well 5 times cheaper.
Worth a look for sure.

 

That would be easy to fall head over heels, over. No doubt! You'd have it to enjoy, long after you had forgotten the pain of paying for it. Vitreous enamel cloisonné on 18-karat gold! What's not to like? Too bad about the damage to the enamel near the 6:00 side of the case. Does anyone pursue this kind of technique, today?

 

A nicely finished movement, too!

 

Is that an 18k 'rose' gold case?

 

You can pick em ! Lovely.

 

That certainly is an unique watch.

 

If you like this sort of thing (or you think SWMBO might) then Elgin does a great line of this style of watch out of the 30's.

 

Do you mean repair or new?

Yes, it can be repaired, but it's not cheap. I see plenty of cloisonne new and old, but it's just not something I'm drawn to.

For those who've never seen it, wire is laid on the box/case/whatever you're working on in the shape of the pattern you want. Then, each section created by the wire is filled with powdered glass and other products of different colours and fired, the glass melting to fill the spaces. Finally, some poor schmuck sits with a pumice stone and polishes back the glass to its final finish. You want to know the real reason those polishers are poor schmucks? It's not the finger-peeling polishing that's the reason, although that's bad enough in itself. The dust from the polishing is breathed in and tears the lungs apart from the inside. You'll never see anyone doing this over 30 and anyone over 20 who's still polishing will be coughing constantly.

If you ever want to try it, mask up and buy a fume cupboard with a great extractor and filtration system. If you want to buy some, check out where it came from and see if they work to best practice. It's a pretty evil way to make a living.

But hey - the watch is nice. Movement comes back as 1928 but I'd say the styling is more arts and crafts into nouveau ... probably just that the case maker was a little "behind the times" in styling because I'd have thought those patterns would put it into the post war and no later.Then again, different styles in different countries. What might have been going out of style in London could have been the big thing in Berlin.

 

Nice watch @Syrte

Little overreaction

Well...........looks like I killed a few with my old bowl if that's the reaction to a little bit on a watch.

 

Did that read as a little too strong?

I didn't mean it to ... it's just one of those things that many love but don't appreciate what goes into making. Hell, don't even get me started on breaking ships in the sub continent.

 

Thanks gents for the comments and appreciation-- it's quite a lovely piece of craft and the style is even slightly reminiscent of that amazing Egyptian pocket watch from the other day-- but 1k+++ for this charming bauble is just quite absurd, for me at least, I'm just as happy sharing it with you and moving on as if it were a museum piece...

 

If you had it, we'd be happy for you to model it here from time to time.

 

And so would I

It looks like yellow gold to me @Vitezi, very nice all the same.

Beautiful bowl, by the way... Too bad the casualties appear to have been so significant