1947
See also : Top 10 Sculpture Giacometti Giacometti 1947-53 The Man Bird Cars 1940-50 Prints Modern prints Baseball Baseball uniform
1947 The Primordial Trinity of Alberto Giacometti
2015 SOLD for $ 140M including premium
War is over. Alberto Giacometti appreciates that some new art is required and that his diminutive sculptures will not appeal anybody. His characters will be life-size. They will be threadlike as the floor lamps that the artist formerly conceived for Jean-Michel Frank.
Pierre Matisse is interested and promises to organize an exhibition in New York in January 1948 of this art which, in October 1947, does not yet exist. The works must be designed and the bronzes have to be melt. The artist is in a hurry. The meeting with the agents of the foundry is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Alberto is not ready.
He is not happy with his prototype and demolishes it. In a night of frenzied creation, he realizes L'Homme au doigt. When it is carried out for the factory, the plaster is achieved but it is still wet. Seven bronzes including an artist's proof are edited by the Alexis Rudier company.
The man points the finger to show the way to the other two sculptures in the trilogy, the walking man and the standing woman. This horizontal finger is a sign of authority, hope and renewal. L'Homme au doigt emits the founding message before disappearing from Alberto's creations, unlike the other two figures that will accompany his whole career.
The plaster was kneaded in a hurry, giving a tormented and scarred texture from which some observers said that L'Homme au doigt is Alberto's self portrait. One bronze, the number 6/6, was hand-painted by the artist. It strengthens the resemblance. The pointing man is not God between Adam and Eve, he is Alberto, the creative artist.
This number 6/6 178 cm high is the most outstanding piece of bronze by Alberto. It will be sold by Christie's on May 11 in New York, lot 29A. The press release of April 15 announced an estimate in the region of $ 130M.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
Pierre Matisse is interested and promises to organize an exhibition in New York in January 1948 of this art which, in October 1947, does not yet exist. The works must be designed and the bronzes have to be melt. The artist is in a hurry. The meeting with the agents of the foundry is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Alberto is not ready.
He is not happy with his prototype and demolishes it. In a night of frenzied creation, he realizes L'Homme au doigt. When it is carried out for the factory, the plaster is achieved but it is still wet. Seven bronzes including an artist's proof are edited by the Alexis Rudier company.
The man points the finger to show the way to the other two sculptures in the trilogy, the walking man and the standing woman. This horizontal finger is a sign of authority, hope and renewal. L'Homme au doigt emits the founding message before disappearing from Alberto's creations, unlike the other two figures that will accompany his whole career.
The plaster was kneaded in a hurry, giving a tormented and scarred texture from which some observers said that L'Homme au doigt is Alberto's self portrait. One bronze, the number 6/6, was hand-painted by the artist. It strengthens the resemblance. The pointing man is not God between Adam and Eve, he is Alberto, the creative artist.
This number 6/6 178 cm high is the most outstanding piece of bronze by Alberto. It will be sold by Christie's on May 11 in New York, lot 29A. The press release of April 15 announced an estimate in the region of $ 130M.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1947-Y-No.2 by Clyfford Still
2011 SOLD for $ 31.4M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to catalogue.
1947 The Inner Storm of Clyfford Still
2020 SOLD for $ 29M including premium
In 1944 Clyfford Still painted a red flash on a black field. This oil on canvas 268 x 235 cm is without antecedent in the history of art. Like a thunderbolt in a deep night, the scar occupies a limited surface and excludes the straight line. This storm is however imaginary : the lightning is made up of bright color, put with a knife with variations in thickness which bring light effects.
This image seems spontaneous, but it actually results from a meticulous composition. It was preceded by an oil study on paper and followed by another almost identical oil on canvas, 264 x 220 cm.
In 1946 Still becomes a professor at the California School of Fine Arts. He sets an example by his pictorial representations of energy, which are fully non-figurative. The lightnings disappear, replaced by shapes with jagged edges, again created with a knife.
The oil on canvas 174 x 150 cm identified under the references PH-144 and 1947-Y-No.1 in the double nomenclature of the artist's works shows the invasion of a white area by black and crimson red two-tone figures. The artist prepared his own pigments, and the lighter part is made up of several shades of white balanced by a yellow splash.
Still renews here his feat of creating an almost identical work, despite the non-figurative complexity of the forms. It is referenced PH-584 and 1947-Y-No.2.
Still, Rothko and Pollock tried with completely different techniques to express their inner implosion, which also explains their irascible temperaments. At that time their relationship was fair. During the summer of 1949 Mark Rothko came to teach alongside Still, who lent him 1947-Y-No.1 to decorate his home in San Francisco and then in New York.
1947-Y-No.1 is estimated $ 25M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 109. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house. 1947-Y-No.2 was sold for $ 31.4M including premium by Sotheby's on November 9, 2011.
This image seems spontaneous, but it actually results from a meticulous composition. It was preceded by an oil study on paper and followed by another almost identical oil on canvas, 264 x 220 cm.
In 1946 Still becomes a professor at the California School of Fine Arts. He sets an example by his pictorial representations of energy, which are fully non-figurative. The lightnings disappear, replaced by shapes with jagged edges, again created with a knife.
The oil on canvas 174 x 150 cm identified under the references PH-144 and 1947-Y-No.1 in the double nomenclature of the artist's works shows the invasion of a white area by black and crimson red two-tone figures. The artist prepared his own pigments, and the lighter part is made up of several shades of white balanced by a yellow splash.
Still renews here his feat of creating an almost identical work, despite the non-figurative complexity of the forms. It is referenced PH-584 and 1947-Y-No.2.
Still, Rothko and Pollock tried with completely different techniques to express their inner implosion, which also explains their irascible temperaments. At that time their relationship was fair. During the summer of 1949 Mark Rothko came to teach alongside Still, who lent him 1947-Y-No.1 to decorate his home in San Francisco and then in New York.
1947-Y-No.1 is estimated $ 25M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 109. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house. 1947-Y-No.2 was sold for $ 31.4M including premium by Sotheby's on November 9, 2011.
1947 Lotus and Mandarin Ducks by Zhang Daqian
2011 SOLD for HK$ 190M including premium by Sotheby's
1947-R-No.1 by Clyfford Still
2006 SOLD for $ 21.3M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
1947 PH-218 by Clyfford Still
2015 SOLD for $ 14.8M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to catalogue.
1947 Variations on the Lotus
2013 SOLD 80 MHK$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Zhang Daqian was a talented and prolific artist. His success is also due to his vocation for teaching, which makes him simultaneously varying styles and themes. In 1934, only aged 35, he is a professor at Nanjing University.
His innovative processing of colors follows his scholar work on the frescoes in the ancient caves of Dunhuang. The lotus is the best subject to express this new research.
On May 28 in Hong Kong, Christie's sells as a single lot a set of four hanging scrolls made in 1947, 154 x 78 cm each, showing lotus in ink and colors. Here is the link to the catalog.
The various compositions reflect the imagination of the artist, but the color treatment is the most remarkable. The four works are indeed very different, ranging from classical discrete tones to a sumptuous juxtaposition of color washes.
The most colorful of the four images is very close by its color harmony to a scroll from the same year, 185 x 95 cm, which was sold for HK $ 190M including premium at Sotheby's on May 31, 2011 over an estimate of HK $ 15M.
The expected price at Christie's for its lot, HK $ 10 million, does not take into account such a similarity.
POST SALE COMMENT
Forget the estimate and only keep in mind the excellent result: HK $ 80M including premium.
Zhang Daqian was a talented and prolific artist. His success is also due to his vocation for teaching, which makes him simultaneously varying styles and themes. In 1934, only aged 35, he is a professor at Nanjing University.
His innovative processing of colors follows his scholar work on the frescoes in the ancient caves of Dunhuang. The lotus is the best subject to express this new research.
On May 28 in Hong Kong, Christie's sells as a single lot a set of four hanging scrolls made in 1947, 154 x 78 cm each, showing lotus in ink and colors. Here is the link to the catalog.
The various compositions reflect the imagination of the artist, but the color treatment is the most remarkable. The four works are indeed very different, ranging from classical discrete tones to a sumptuous juxtaposition of color washes.
The most colorful of the four images is very close by its color harmony to a scroll from the same year, 185 x 95 cm, which was sold for HK $ 190M including premium at Sotheby's on May 31, 2011 over an estimate of HK $ 15M.
The expected price at Christie's for its lot, HK $ 10 million, does not take into account such a similarity.
POST SALE COMMENT
Forget the estimate and only keep in mind the excellent result: HK $ 80M including premium.
1946-1947 The Prodigious Spark
2020 SOLD for HK$ 64M including premium
Clyfford Still perceives the world as a balance of forces : life and death, horizontal and vertical, white and black. These notions are not independent : life is vertical, landscape and death are horizontal.
He would like the viewers of his work to discover new forces within themselves. Figurative art cannot contribute to this ambitious goal : Clyfford Still is the inventor of abstract expressionism.
In 1944 he adds the creative energy in the shape of a brilliant flash which crosses the image from top to bottom. All the elements give in to this phenomenon, creating frayed forms that slide in a two-dimensional space while trying to maintain their dominant position. Yellow and red forms provide a counterweight to the black invasion. The zigzag lightning is his life force or life line, in his own wording.
An oil on canvas dated 1946-1947 is typical of this abstract exploration of the world. The format is vertical, 136 x 71 cm. The lightning is visible, which is already rarely the case at that time. It crosses a black mass to fertilize a sort of ground at the bottom of the image.
Still has rarely expressed his conception of creation so completely. He kept this piece for a long time before presenting it to his daughter Sandra in 1976, four years before his death. This painting, numbered PH-306 in the nomenclature of his works, is estimated HK $ 54M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on July 9, lot 1122.
Conceived in 1946, PH-306 prefigures Pollock's unlimited surfaces, the fringes around Rothko's blocks, the zip of Newman and the floating colors of de Kooning.
Another opus highlighting the transcendental force is 1949-A-No.1, 236 x 200 cm, sold for $ 62M including premium by Sotheby's on November 9, 2011.
He would like the viewers of his work to discover new forces within themselves. Figurative art cannot contribute to this ambitious goal : Clyfford Still is the inventor of abstract expressionism.
In 1944 he adds the creative energy in the shape of a brilliant flash which crosses the image from top to bottom. All the elements give in to this phenomenon, creating frayed forms that slide in a two-dimensional space while trying to maintain their dominant position. Yellow and red forms provide a counterweight to the black invasion. The zigzag lightning is his life force or life line, in his own wording.
An oil on canvas dated 1946-1947 is typical of this abstract exploration of the world. The format is vertical, 136 x 71 cm. The lightning is visible, which is already rarely the case at that time. It crosses a black mass to fertilize a sort of ground at the bottom of the image.
Still has rarely expressed his conception of creation so completely. He kept this piece for a long time before presenting it to his daughter Sandra in 1976, four years before his death. This painting, numbered PH-306 in the nomenclature of his works, is estimated HK $ 54M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on July 9, lot 1122.
Conceived in 1946, PH-306 prefigures Pollock's unlimited surfaces, the fringes around Rothko's blocks, the zip of Newman and the floating colors of de Kooning.
Another opus highlighting the transcendental force is 1949-A-No.1, 236 x 200 cm, sold for $ 62M including premium by Sotheby's on November 9, 2011.
1946-1947 Océanie - la mer by Matisse
2011 SOLD for £ 2.95M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
1947 A Post-War Bentley
2012 SOLD 2.75 M$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Luxury cars of the 1930s give the impression of an infinite variety. The chassis was entrusted to skilled bodybuilders who competed with each other to attract wealthy clients.
World War II slowed their art without stopping completely, as evidenced by a 1947 Bentley available in the sale organized by Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale AZ from January 15 to 22.
This Mark VI model has a rare feature: the chassis has been sent to France to be coachworked as a convertible cabriolet by Franay. The result is interesting. The elegance of the lines is English, but the powerful look is in the fashion of the massive French cars of that time. This Bentley looks like a Delahaye.
I have found it again on the web (with the same plate!). It was sold for $ 1.7M including premium in the sale heldf rom March 30 to April 1, 2006 in Palm Beach, also by Barrett-Jackson.
Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
The gain in six years is remarkable. This car was sold $ 2.75 million including premium.
Luxury cars of the 1930s give the impression of an infinite variety. The chassis was entrusted to skilled bodybuilders who competed with each other to attract wealthy clients.
World War II slowed their art without stopping completely, as evidenced by a 1947 Bentley available in the sale organized by Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale AZ from January 15 to 22.
This Mark VI model has a rare feature: the chassis has been sent to France to be coachworked as a convertible cabriolet by Franay. The result is interesting. The elegance of the lines is English, but the powerful look is in the fashion of the massive French cars of that time. This Bentley looks like a Delahaye.
I have found it again on the web (with the same plate!). It was sold for $ 1.7M including premium in the sale heldf rom March 30 to April 1, 2006 in Palm Beach, also by Barrett-Jackson.
Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
The gain in six years is remarkable. This car was sold $ 2.75 million including premium.
1947 The New Gods of Wifredo Lam
2015 SOLD for $ 2.63M including premium
The cosmopolitan culture of Wifredo Lam anticipates the contemporary globalization. He was born in Cuba, son of a Chinese and grandson of a Cuban mulatto with a Congolese slave. His godmother is a voodoo healer.
The sensitivity of Wifredo Lam is not mystical but social. Republican fighter, he met Picasso after Guernica. He will populate his paintings with fantastical characters in hybrid forms combining human, animal and plant without forgetting the aesthetic influence of African fetishes.
His surrealist compositions convey a political message in favor of the Third World, guided by titles that are often linked to the Yoruba mythology. The all-powerful figures announce a different world.
On May 26 in New York, Phillips sells an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted in 1947, lot 25 estimated $ 2M.
Simply titled Présages, this artwork has the characteristics of a fantastic and multiple nativity. A cluster of four small spheres of which two are horned is coiled in one of the leafy arms of the creature who is necessarily the female. The being who flies over the scene like a pterodactyl is the father. A little further, a third character with the triangular head of an African mask attends the event.
Premonitions (Présages) of freedom actually appeared in 1947 with the end of the colonial period in India and Palestine, two years after the end of World War II.
The sensitivity of Wifredo Lam is not mystical but social. Republican fighter, he met Picasso after Guernica. He will populate his paintings with fantastical characters in hybrid forms combining human, animal and plant without forgetting the aesthetic influence of African fetishes.
His surrealist compositions convey a political message in favor of the Third World, guided by titles that are often linked to the Yoruba mythology. The all-powerful figures announce a different world.
On May 26 in New York, Phillips sells an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted in 1947, lot 25 estimated $ 2M.
Simply titled Présages, this artwork has the characteristics of a fantastic and multiple nativity. A cluster of four small spheres of which two are horned is coiled in one of the leafy arms of the creature who is necessarily the female. The being who flies over the scene like a pterodactyl is the father. A little further, a third character with the triangular head of an African mask attends the event.
Premonitions (Présages) of freedom actually appeared in 1947 with the end of the colonial period in India and Palestine, two years after the end of World War II.
1947 The Rookie of the Dodgers
2017 SOLD for $ 2.05M including premium
The Brooklyn Dodgers were among the best baseball teams. In 1947 for the 7th time in their history they were champions of the National League. On that year their success had a historical dimension : for the first time, thanks to the obstinacy of their general manager Branch Rickey and to the courage of Jackie Robinson, the race barrier fell in one of its most protected strongholds, the Major League Baseball.
At the closing ceremony of the championship on September 23, 1947, a photo shows Jackie in a baseball uniform alongside his wife and a friend.
That game worn jersey was treasured for half a century at first by Jackie and then by his widow. A great symbol of the movement that will lead to racial equality in the United States, it is sold without reserve price as lot 50001 by Heritage in Dallas on November 19 in an online auction with extended bidding. The bidding starts at $ 900K with a $ 3M guide value.
The 1947 season ends from September 30 to October 6 with the World Series where the Dodgers are defeated by the Yankees in the seventh match. Rickey's choice had been relevant : Jackie Robinson was able to resist all insults up to and including the MLB's most prestigious event and his sporting qualities made him named Rookie of the Year.
Please watch the video shared by Heritage.
At the closing ceremony of the championship on September 23, 1947, a photo shows Jackie in a baseball uniform alongside his wife and a friend.
That game worn jersey was treasured for half a century at first by Jackie and then by his widow. A great symbol of the movement that will lead to racial equality in the United States, it is sold without reserve price as lot 50001 by Heritage in Dallas on November 19 in an online auction with extended bidding. The bidding starts at $ 900K with a $ 3M guide value.
The 1947 season ends from September 30 to October 6 with the World Series where the Dodgers are defeated by the Yankees in the seventh match. Rickey's choice had been relevant : Jackie Robinson was able to resist all insults up to and including the MLB's most prestigious event and his sporting qualities made him named Rookie of the Year.
Please watch the video shared by Heritage.
1947 Cut-Outs by Matisse
2017 SOLD for $ 1.57M including premium
The great project of Matisse was to bring a new meaning to art by the choice of colors and the simplicity of lines. La Danse, painted in 1909, appears as a prototype of his evolution at the end of his career.
Jazz, edited in 1947 by Tériade, marks the triumph of his new technique of cut papers. It is however only one of the elements of the restart of the theories of the artist for a joyous art that seeks the sublime, escaping henceforth the conventions of painting, sculpture and drawing.
Helped by his very efficient assistant Lydia, Matisse covers the walls of his studio in Vence with his new realizations of which he constantly modifies the positions in search of a soothing balance in the global effect. Not only did Matisse reach abstraction but he also anticipated the monochromists of the following decade.
The stiff paper is covered with a monochrome gouache in the expressive color desired by the artist. His large sewing scissors cut an abstract silhouette of harmonious curves in the middle of this plate which is then pinned on a cardboard of another color. When the artist left Vence two years later, the pins were carefully replaced by light dots of glue.
On May 17 in New York, Bonhams sells a 41 x 26 cm abstract cutout made in 1947, titled Arbre de neige, lot 12 estimated $ 800K. Within the fuchsia-colored gouache, the hole on a white background evokes a tree-like shape with undulating edges.
Another cutout of same size made in the same year was sold for $ 1,08M including premium by Christie's on November 4, 2013 in the sale of the Krieger collection. The comparison of the two artworks shows the diversity of the new inspiration of the artist : these Arabesques violettes sur un fond orange have shredded edges close to the violence of the abstract paintings by Clyfford Still.
Please watch the video shared by Bonhams.
Jazz, edited in 1947 by Tériade, marks the triumph of his new technique of cut papers. It is however only one of the elements of the restart of the theories of the artist for a joyous art that seeks the sublime, escaping henceforth the conventions of painting, sculpture and drawing.
Helped by his very efficient assistant Lydia, Matisse covers the walls of his studio in Vence with his new realizations of which he constantly modifies the positions in search of a soothing balance in the global effect. Not only did Matisse reach abstraction but he also anticipated the monochromists of the following decade.
The stiff paper is covered with a monochrome gouache in the expressive color desired by the artist. His large sewing scissors cut an abstract silhouette of harmonious curves in the middle of this plate which is then pinned on a cardboard of another color. When the artist left Vence two years later, the pins were carefully replaced by light dots of glue.
On May 17 in New York, Bonhams sells a 41 x 26 cm abstract cutout made in 1947, titled Arbre de neige, lot 12 estimated $ 800K. Within the fuchsia-colored gouache, the hole on a white background evokes a tree-like shape with undulating edges.
Another cutout of same size made in the same year was sold for $ 1,08M including premium by Christie's on November 4, 2013 in the sale of the Krieger collection. The comparison of the two artworks shows the diversity of the new inspiration of the artist : these Arabesques violettes sur un fond orange have shredded edges close to the violence of the abstract paintings by Clyfford Still.
Please watch the video shared by Bonhams.
1947 The Dreams of Leonora Carrington
2009 SOLD 1.5 M$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In Paris, the English Leonora Carrington was close to the Surrealists. Very young, she had an affair with Max Ernst. When came the Second World War, she almost descended into madness, and then took refuge in Mexico where she married twice. She was a key personality of the intense artistic life of Mexico, where she still lives in the same corner after six decades.
In October 1944, she pictorially celebrated her second Mexican marriage, with the Hungarian Chiki. This oil, tempera and ink 90 x 90 cm, French entitled "Chiki, ton pays" (Chiki, your country) was sold 420 K £ including expenses by Sotheby's in London in February 2002. It is again coming at auction, estimated $ 1.2 million, at Sotheby's in New York on May 27.
A giant woman with a very small head occupies the left part of a fantastic landscape, completed with a pond that provides impossible reflections. The newlyweds dominate this dream scene from the top inside of a bright red draped mountain.
This friend of Frida Kahlo is definitely one of the discoveries of this spring. The theme of the small headed giant woman is the main subject of a tempera on panel, circa 1947, 120 x 69 cm, estimated 800 K$ by Christie's in New York on May 28.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
For "Chiki ton pays", the market did not follow the arguments of the auction house on the importance of the work. This painting has not been sold. Surrealism is too complicated to interpret, and it is increasingly difficult to achieve high prices there.
Wait now Christie's lot, less important in the work of the artist, but also less difficult to decode.
2
There is no doubt, it is the surprise of the day. Christie's sold their painting, $ 1.5 million including expenses. This result, well above the estimate, is also higher than what Sotheby's was waiting on Chiki.
This Giantess, also called the Guardian of the Egg, is as dreamlike as Chiki, but the simplicity (and thus the strength) of its design enabled it to succeed.
In Paris, the English Leonora Carrington was close to the Surrealists. Very young, she had an affair with Max Ernst. When came the Second World War, she almost descended into madness, and then took refuge in Mexico where she married twice. She was a key personality of the intense artistic life of Mexico, where she still lives in the same corner after six decades.
In October 1944, she pictorially celebrated her second Mexican marriage, with the Hungarian Chiki. This oil, tempera and ink 90 x 90 cm, French entitled "Chiki, ton pays" (Chiki, your country) was sold 420 K £ including expenses by Sotheby's in London in February 2002. It is again coming at auction, estimated $ 1.2 million, at Sotheby's in New York on May 27.
A giant woman with a very small head occupies the left part of a fantastic landscape, completed with a pond that provides impossible reflections. The newlyweds dominate this dream scene from the top inside of a bright red draped mountain.
This friend of Frida Kahlo is definitely one of the discoveries of this spring. The theme of the small headed giant woman is the main subject of a tempera on panel, circa 1947, 120 x 69 cm, estimated 800 K$ by Christie's in New York on May 28.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
For "Chiki ton pays", the market did not follow the arguments of the auction house on the importance of the work. This painting has not been sold. Surrealism is too complicated to interpret, and it is increasingly difficult to achieve high prices there.
Wait now Christie's lot, less important in the work of the artist, but also less difficult to decode.
2
There is no doubt, it is the surprise of the day. Christie's sold their painting, $ 1.5 million including expenses. This result, well above the estimate, is also higher than what Sotheby's was waiting on Chiki.
This Giantess, also called the Guardian of the Egg, is as dreamlike as Chiki, but the simplicity (and thus the strength) of its design enabled it to succeed.
1947 A Tourbillon on the Wrist
2017 SOLD for CHF 1.43M including premium
The history of clockmaking is a continuous series of inventions supported by the skills of the best craftsmen and manufacturers. Amidst many other improvements Abraham-Louis Breguet is the inventor of the tourbillon : the escapement and the balance are mounted in a rotating cage to counter the variations in gravity.
The twentieth century had great advances in the miniaturization, encouraged by trials organized by the observatories for granting their official certificates. After the second world war, the wristwatch category of these competitions is applicable to mechanisms less than 30 mm in diameter, without assembly requirements.
In 1947 Omega enters to the observatory trials the miniaturization of the tourbillon with twelve identical mechanisms under the reference Tourbillon 30 I. The original feature of the Omega tourbillon is a very slow movement of the cage. Seven of them will be found forty years later in the archives of the brand and mounted in cases. These mechanisms are also compensated in temperature by the Guillaume balance.
Unknown so far, a wristwatch surfaces as lot 182 in the sale by Phillips in Geneva on November 12. The investigation carried out by the auction house with Omega and highlighted by the specialized website Hodinkee confirms that this watch was assembled in 1947 as a prototype of which it has typical qualities : it is not embellished and remains in superb condition.
Omega's success at the observatory trials in Geneva, Neuchâtel and Kew from 1947 to 1952 demonstrates the feasibility of their miniaturized tourbillon to reach the required accuracy. The commercialization project was abandoned for whatever the reason and was never disclosed. For thirty years nowadays the tourbillon has become after further improvements one of the most appreciated mechanisms in the complication wristwatches.
The twentieth century had great advances in the miniaturization, encouraged by trials organized by the observatories for granting their official certificates. After the second world war, the wristwatch category of these competitions is applicable to mechanisms less than 30 mm in diameter, without assembly requirements.
In 1947 Omega enters to the observatory trials the miniaturization of the tourbillon with twelve identical mechanisms under the reference Tourbillon 30 I. The original feature of the Omega tourbillon is a very slow movement of the cage. Seven of them will be found forty years later in the archives of the brand and mounted in cases. These mechanisms are also compensated in temperature by the Guillaume balance.
Unknown so far, a wristwatch surfaces as lot 182 in the sale by Phillips in Geneva on November 12. The investigation carried out by the auction house with Omega and highlighted by the specialized website Hodinkee confirms that this watch was assembled in 1947 as a prototype of which it has typical qualities : it is not embellished and remains in superb condition.
Omega's success at the observatory trials in Geneva, Neuchâtel and Kew from 1947 to 1952 demonstrates the feasibility of their miniaturized tourbillon to reach the required accuracy. The commercialization project was abandoned for whatever the reason and was never disclosed. For thirty years nowadays the tourbillon has become after further improvements one of the most appreciated mechanisms in the complication wristwatches.
