An anonymous buyer walked away with the famous and historic, 18K gold, enamel and diamond-set hunter case ‘petite souscription a tact’ watch that belonged to Empress Josephine, wife of French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte. The buyer paid an astounding sum of $1.3 million at the Christie’s auction in Geneva, which is seven-fold its estimated pre-auction price. It is an imitation of the ‘tactile watch’ model, designed by Abraham Louis Breguet in 1790, where the wearer can know the time by simply feeling from the outside, as the watch hand is positioned to the exterior. Josephine had ordered the watch for 3,000 francs in 1799, and the diamonds were embedded only in 1804, when Napoleon was crowned the Emperor of France. The watch was inscribed with an ‘H’ initial after it was given to Hortense, wife of Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonparte, who went on to become the Queen of Holland after Napoleon placed his brother as King in 1806.

Via: Elitechoice