Historically important Swiss minute repeating chronograph Circa 1880

Rose gold Art Nouveau decorated chronograph by Patek Philippe
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An extremely fine and historically important, large Swiss 18 carat rose gold hunting cased minute repeating keyless lever chronograph pocket watch, circa 1880. Sold on July 16th, 1881. Nickel-plated movement, Geneva Striping decoration, 25 jewels, a counterpoised and calibrated straight-line lever escapement, cut-bimetallic compensation balance with gold adjustment screws, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. A hinged gold cuvette. White enamel dial with Roman hours, outer minute divisions, an outermost chronograph track divided into fifths with red Arabic five-second numerals, subsidiary seconds with red Arabic numerals and blued steel spade hands. A polished case, the front cover is decorated in relief with a translucent and champlevé enamel cockerel with the rising sun in iridescent champlevé enamel behind, the back is decorated with a translucent and opalescent champlevé enamel Art Nouveau scene of a moonlit bay, a push-button between 4 and 5 for start/stop and return-to-zero chronograph functions. The case decoration was made circa 1910 by A.H. Rodanet to the special order of Edmond Rostand. Case and movement numbered, the cuvette signed by Rodanet. Comes with a Rodanet fitted box, an Extract from the Archives, a period photograph of Jean Coquelin, a Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin program of January 1910 for Chantecler, a four-act piece by Edmond Rostand and a copy of Le Petit Journal for January 30th, 1910 illustrating scenes from Chantecler.
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Diameter: 53 mm
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Signed: Patek Philippe Genève
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The present watch belonged to the famous French writer and poet Edmond Rostand who achieved international acclaim for his play on the life of Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897. In 1908, Rostand wrote a four-act work entitled ‘Chantecler’ which opened on the 7th February 1910 at the Théatre de la Porte Saint-Martin. From contemporary illustrated literature the actors in the play wore realistic animal costumes including a farmyard act called ‘Le Matin du Coq’. One of the actors in the play, the comedian Jean Coquelin, was also a director of the theatre and it is likely that to show his pleasure with the performances and perhaps as a play on Coquelin’s name, Edmond Rostand decided to present Coquelin with his Patek Philippe watch. It must have been at great expense that Rostand commissioned the prestigious firm of A.H. Rodanet to enhance the covers of the watch with fine enamels in the then contemporary Art Nouveau style. The front cover is magnificently decorated with a realistically modeled cockerel and the reverse with a sublime moonlit shoreline landscape. The completed watch resulted in a very fine Art Nouveau work of art. The firm of A.H. Rodanet were well placed to carry out this work as both jewelers of high repute and agents for the watches of Patek Philippe in Paris.
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On May 1st, 1839 the Polish businessman and aristocrat Antoine Norbert Count de Patek and the Polish watchmaker Franciszek Czapek founded a company in Geneva named Patek, Czapek & Cie. Czapek lived in Switzerland since 1832 and changed his name to François Czapek when he became nationalized. The company ran well but each went their own way in 1844 and set up their own company: Czapek & Cie which continued till 1869 and Patek & Cie.

1844 Patek met the French watchmaker Jean-Adrien Philippe at the Paris World’s Fair. Philippe had already enriched the watch’s history with one of its most revolutionary inventions: the crown winding. Since then watches needed no longer to be wound with an additional key, but both the winding and the time adjustment of the hands could now be performed much easier by the crown. On May 15^th, 1845 Jean-Adrien Philippe and Vincent Gostkowski entered the company. In the same year, a patent for a watch with a winding stem and hand adjustment mechanism was applied. They produced the first watch with a minute repeater. On January 1^st, 1851 the company’s name was changed to Patek, Philippe & Cie. In 1881, a patent for a precision adjustment was applied by Philippe.

On February 1^st, 1901 Patek, Philippe & Cie was converted into a stock corporation and renamed Ancienne Manufacture d’Horlogerie Patek, Philippe & Cie S.A. A patent for a double chronograph was applied in 1902. The company continues through significant inventions, which are highly regarded. In 1932, Patek Philippe was taken over by Charles and Jean Stern, after which the company name changed to Patek Philippe S.A. Thierry Stern (fourth generation) took office in 2009 as president. The company has 70 patents and produces the entire clockwork in-house. Their luxurious timepieces are of high quality and therefore often raise record amounts at auctions. A pocket watch produced in 1933 was sold at auction for 11 million euros in 1999. A world record at that time. On November 11^th, 2014, it was auctioned again and this time it was sold for 19 million euros. On the occasion of the 150^th-anniversary celebration in 1989, the legendary Calibre 89 is presented, which took nine years to develop. With 33 complications and 1728 components, this watch is regarded as a pocket watch of superlatives. Both dials together it has 24 hands and 12 dials, in addition, a minute repeater with a large and small carillion, an alarm function, a tourbillon, a perpetual calendar, a split-second chronograph movement and over 20 other complications. The most complicated pocket watch movement at all.

Patek Philippe, together with Audemars Piguet (1875), Vacheron Constantin (1755) and A. Lange und Söhne (1845) is considered to be ‘the big four’ in the watchmaking world. Today it is one of the few still independent watch companies. The company is also the only Geneva manufacturer, whose entire production of mechanical watch movements is awarded with the Geneva Seal (Poinçon de Genève).