A. Lange & Söhne Grande Complication Watch Sells for Record $2.06 Million at Sotheby's Geneva

A rare A. Lange & Söhne Grande Complication watch from 1916 sold for $2.06 million (1.59 million CHF) at Sotheby's Geneva auction, setting a record as the most expensive piece from the watchmaker ever sold at auction. The 18-karat pink-gold timepiece, known as Watch No. 62508, is number five of nine Grande Complications produced by A. Lange & Söhne and the final example in pink gold. It features a 62 mm clock watch with complications including a grande and petite sonnerie, perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and split-seconds chronograph. The white-enamel dial with Arabic numerals includes a moonphase function and leap-year cycle. The case is sculptural Louis XV-style, with a movement based on a Piguet ebauche. Unusually for a bespoke watch of this complexity, it bears no crests or coat of arms. The watch remained in the same family since 1939 and had not been seen publicly in nearly 90 years. Sotheby's Geneva Important Watches Sale also featured other notable lots: a yellow-gold Driver from Cartier's The Shapes of Cartier lineup sold for $164,852, a yellow-gold Tank Cintrée realized $197,823, and a Rolex Daytona "Paul Newman" hammered down for a record $1.5 million.