The house of Henry Capt was founded in 1822 by famous Henry-Daniel Capt in Geneva and flourished for many years. When in 1789 Capt moved to Geneva, he worked for several well-known companies such as Jaquet-Droz, Godemar Frères, Leschot, and his brother-in-law Isaac Daniel Piguet, with whom he later went into partnership. In 1830, he went into partnership with Aubert and Son, Place Bel-Air (Aubert & Capt). They were among the first Genevan watchmakers to produce watches with chronographs.
Capt was one of the leading manufacturers specialized in the production of complicated watches, musical, and automaton scenes incorporated into watches. Among the first in Geneva to use the musical mechanism. Most of his work is not signed, although he sometimes scratched his name on his movements.
In 2007, Antiquorum sold a rectangular diamond-set silk-lined coin purse fitted with a concealed watch and a concealed portrait for HK$177,000. It was created around 1850 and is made from 18K gold. A rare Henry Capt musical watch emerged on the market in Antiquorum's February 2011 sale catalog with an estimate of $100,000-150,000.
This week we had a chance to post a beautiful wristwatch, which was built on a base of the original Henry Capt mechanism. It was found in one of the online marketplaces. Unfortunately, it was sold without an original case. A lot of movements got scrapped for their precious metal (gold or silver) cases. But it had an original enamel dial in very bad condition. The movement was completely disassembled, cleaned, oiled, and calibrated. We have created a new engraved case and a new hand-crafted dial. After all the parts were put together, we repaired the movement, fully serviced, and tested it.
