Sotheby’s inaugural Necessary Watches public sale on the iconic Breuer Constructing on December 8 was one for the books. The sale, which included timepieces from the Robert M. Olmsted Problems Assortment, achieved $42.8 million, greater than doubling its excessive estimate and establishing the very best whole ever for a watch public sale within the public sale home’s historical past. Among the many heaps was the “Grosse Pièce,” essentially the most difficult identified pocket watch crafted by Audemars Piguet nonetheless in personal arms, which bought for $7.7 million with charges, setting a brand new file for the legendary watchmaker to change into essentially the most worthwhile timepiece by the atelier ever bought at public sale and the fourth highest worth ever achieved for a watch at Sotheby’s. The earlier file for an Audemars Piguet watch was $5.2 million for a one-of-one “Black Panther” idea watch; the subsequent highest worth was for Gerald Genta’s private “Royal Oak,” which Sotheby’s bought in 2022 for $2.1 million.
“The record-breaking outcome achieved by Audemars Piguet’s ‘Grosse Pièce’ is nothing wanting extraordinary,” Daryn Schnipper, Sotheby’s chairman emeritus, worldwide watch division, mentioned in an announcement. “It stands as a robust reminder of the importance of this assortment and the extraordinary heights that necessary horology can attain.”
The worth of the “Grosse Pièce” lies not solely in its rarity however within the exceptional convergence of improvements it embodies. Commissioned in 1914 by Smith & Sons of London for an American consumer and accomplished in 1921 after six years of meticulous work, it has been confirmed by the Audemars Piguet Heritage Division because the model’s sole watch to characteristic an astronomical star chart depicting 18 constellations. It’s also the one identified Audemars Piguet pocket watch from this era to incorporate a tourbillon, and the pairing of that mechanism with a sky chart and 19 further issues positions it as a peerless achievement within the historical past of horlogerie.
With the watch, the client will obtain an album assembled by the previous director of the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet, Martin Werhli, with photocopies of the workbook information, together with a replica of the Audemars Piguet Registre d’Établissage itemizing the motion quantity, parts and the ordering agent, and a replica of two paperwork referring to the inspection of the jewelling, one dated 1915 and signed Ami Meylan.
The “Grosse Pièce” bought alongside a mixture of classic, fashionable and impartial timepieces, together with two beforehand unknown double-movement Patek Philippe pocket watches commissioned by industrialist John Motley Morehead: the 1924 Double Motion Cut up Seconds Minute Repeating Watch and a circa-1921 open-faced minute repeater with a double motion, each of which had been acquired by the Patek Philippe Museum for a mixed $6.2 million. The outcome follows the record-setting sale of Francis Ford Coppola’s F.P. Journe FFC prototype, which achieved $10.75 million earlier this week at Phillips’ $43.5 million The New York Watch Public sale: XIII (the highest-grossing watch public sale ever held in the USA).
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