German half-hunting cased repeating lever watch Circa 1890

Silver and gold 1st quality quarter repeater by A. Lange & Söhne
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A very fine and extremely rare, large German silver and gold half-hunting cased quarter repeating keyless lever pocket watch, circa 1890. A  frosted gilt ¾ plate Glashütte movement, 18 jewels, gold chatons with blued steel screws, a straight-line Glashütte escapement, gold pallet fork and escape wheel, banking with a pin and hole, a Lange Guillaume-type balance with gold timing screws, blued steel Breguet balance spring, the terminal stud adjustable by a screw, diamond endstone, engraved balance cock and swan-neck micrometre regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. A hinged silver cuvette. White enamel dial with blue Arabic hours, outer painted gold dot minute divisions and blue Arabic five-minute numerals, subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock and gold Louis XV hands. The polished case with a gold-rimmed glazed aperture and royal blue champlevé enamel Arabic hours on the front cover, gold hinges, a crown and repeat slide. Dial, case and cuvette signed, movement signed and numbered.
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Diameter: 55.5 mm
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Signed: A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte B/Dresden
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ALS (A. Lange & Söhne) quality pocket watches signed A. Lange & Söhne, Glashutte B/Dresden always denoted watches of first quality, whether under the ‘A. Lange Dresden’ signature or the later ‘A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte-Sa’. Their movements had 16 to 20 jewels. Four jewels and the pallet-staff bearing were set in screw-held gold chatons and visible on the top plate. The balance staff had a diamond endstone. The balance cocks were engraved and the index had micrometre adjustment on a swan-neck spring. Only gold (and sometimes platinum) screws were used on the balance. Lange adjusted each movement in five positions.
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Ferdinand Adolph Lange was the founder of A. Lange & Söhne. He was born in 1815 as the son of Johann Samuel Lange. Early in life, his parents separated and he was adopted by a foster family. Luckily this family offered him a chance at proper education and in 1829, he joined the Technical University of Dresden. Lange’s master was Christian Friedrich Gutkaes, the maker of the famous five-minute clock in the Dresden Opera House and the court watchmaker later on. Lange finished his apprenticeship with honours and went on to work with Gutkaes as his assistant for more than two years.

In 1837, Lange decided he wanted to learn the watchmaking craft from the best of the time and this decision took him to Paris, Switzerland and England. He spent four years with the master watchmaker Winnerl, a student of Breguet, in Paris. Lange returned to Dresden in 1841 and took over his now father-in-law Gutkaes’ business in 1842. He had the ambition to bring prosperity to the once rich, now unfortunate Erzgebirge region, Glashütte, he wanted to build a watchmaking industry and create jobs. He received funding from the high council of Saxony and on December 7th, 1845, Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded A. Lange & Cie. He started with fifteen young men who were obliged to work with him for at least five years and following Lange encouraged his apprentices to found their own specialized firms in Switzerland. He set up a watchmaking cluster in the region along with his colleagues Julius Assmann, Adolf Schneider and Moritz Grossmann. At the time, there was a specialist for every part, producing individual pieces of the highest quality. Ferdinand Adolph developed numerous mechanisms, from the remontoir to dead-seconds and repeaters and he introduced the metric system to watchmaking. Eventually, it took Glashütte watchmaking 20 years to develop.

After two successful decades and as the mayor of Glashütte Ferdinand Adolph Lange retired in 1868. He enjoyed his spacious house built adjacent to the factory, which today serves as the headquarters of the modern A. Lange & Söhne. He gave the reigns of his legacy to his sons Richard and Emil Lange, subsequently, the company’s name was changed from A. Lange & Cie to A. Lange & Söhne. Under their management A. Lange & Söhne expanded tremendously. Ferdinand Adolph Lange died in 1875. In 1948, the post-war Soviet administration nationalized the company’s property and the Lange brand ceased to exist. However, in December 1990, following German reunification, the founder’s great-grandson Walter Lange, together with watch industry executive Günter Blümlein, restored the company with the assistance of several Swiss watch manufacturers, including the International Watch Company (IWC) and Jaeger-LeCoultre. Again operating from Glashütte, the company presented its first range of wristwatches in 1994. Today, A. Lange & Söhne wristwatches are sold globally. Lange, like IWC, is now a member of the Richemont group.