Description
A lady’s cocktail watch from around 1970, made by Piaget and sold through Mauboussin in Paris. The case is an oval of 18K yellow gold, the bezel set with a ring of diamonds, and the dial a plain silver with slim gold baton markers and nothing to interrupt it but the Piaget name. It is a watch designed to be worn as jewellery first — read the time at a glance, then return to the bracelet.
The bracelet is where the piece earns its weight. It is integrated into the case rather than attached to it, and worked in two finishes at once: chased with a pattern of interlocking blocks, then matted so the gold takes on a soft bark-like texture instead of a mirror polish. Under light the surface reads almost as woven fabric. This was Piaget’s great contribution to the period — treating the bracelet as the main event and the watch head as its clasp.
Behind the dial is Piaget’s calibre 9P, the hand-wound movement introduced in 1957 that was thin enough to let the house build cases this slim. The 9P is what made the Piaget dress watch possible, and it remained the basis of the house’s jewellery watches for decades.
The caseback is signed Mauboussin Paris. Piaget supplied a small number of the great Parisian jewellers in those years, and a watch carrying both names belongs to that shared history — Piaget’s movement and goldwork, Mauboussin’s name on the box. The bracelet closes with its original signed hinged clasp.
