Cartier, made by Maurice Couët. An exceptionally fine and rare rock crystal, gold, silver-plated, enamel and diamond-set eight-day Day and Night Comet clock with original box

Accompanied by Cartier France original fitted presentation box.


The talented clockmaker Maurice Couët learned the basics of this fine art while working in his father's workshop in Evreux, France. After a tenure with Prévost in Paris, he opened his own workshop and, as of 1912, was commissioned by Cartier with the manufacture of imaginative clocks, such as the celebrated "Mystery" clocks. Couët's first inventions were the "planet" or "comet" clocks, also designated "semi-mystérieuses". These enchanting timepieces were usually featuring sky blue enamel dials and diamond-set hands formed as stars, moons or comet tails, poetically evoking the heavenly firmament and resembling the Islamic-style jewellery then made by Cartier.

The rarity of the present "Comet" clock is enhanced by its excellent overall condition and the original box.

For a description of these clocks and illustration of one of the earliest example of a "comet" clock, comparable to the present lot, see The Cartier Collection - Timepieces, Editions Flammarion, p. 151. Other examples are illustrated in Le Temps de Cartier by Jader Barracca, Giampiero Negretti, Franco Nencini, p. 62.