At the end of these isolation days, few will be able to witness a vision of time in all its splendor. To be clear, we are talking about the unrepeatable preview of a private collection of 101 mysterious Cartier watches. The Christie’s Geneva auction will take place on July 1st at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. The unique collection of 101 Cartier watches, the result of research and a passionate collection, covers a period of 30 years. The valuation for the entire collection of pendules mystérieuses is between 3.9 million – 5.7 million CHF, with individual estimates of 8,000 CHF (between 4 and 5.4 million dollars).
Cartier had made headlines this year, for also embellishing the most expensive Christmas tree in the world with its bijou.
These “watch miracles“, as defined by Gazette du Bon Ton magazine in 1925, were created by Louis Cartier and the watchmaker of the Maison Maurice Couët, drawing inspiration from the research of the illusionist Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. The first model was born in 1912. Most of these watches at auction are in fact from the master Maurice Coüet whose association with Cartier began at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its mystérieuses pendulums created the illusion that the hands attached to two transparent disks that hid the mechanism inside the frame floated.
The views will be open to the public from 27 to 30 June.
