By George...king’s secret watch sells for £1.6m
A RARE and revolutionary French watch which belonged to King George III has sold for £1.6million at auction.
The monarch secretly ordered the gold Tourbillon timepiece during the NapoleonicWars – as he did not want to be seen buying from the enemies.
He paid the then enormous sum of 4,800 francs and his royal cypher was engraved featuring a crown and the letters G&R.The watch was made by
Abraham-Louis Breguet and to prevent the chance of seizure, he signed the carriage inside.
His work had cutting-edge features including a mechanism that increases accuracy by tackling gravity and correcting for positional error.
The watch was also the only four-minute Tourbillon with a dial in
English and a thermometer. George III was passionate about horology and the sciences – and Breguet’s creations were sought after by all the crowned heads of Europe from Marie Antoinette and the King of Spain to Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I.
But our king appeared not to have fully paid as archives contain a bill reminder for an outstanding payment.
The watch sold for more than half a million over its top estimate after a four-way bidding war broke out at the auction at Sotheby’s in London.
Daryn Schnipper, world chairman of Sotheby’s watch division, said: “When you hold the watch he made for George III, you instantly know you are in the presence of something truly exceptional.”
The eventually buyer remained anonymous.