French silver verge watch with wandering hour Circa 1850

Silver retrograde watch
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A rare French silver open faced verge pocket watch with a wandering hour, circa 1850. Full plate movement, chain and fusee, key wind, three arm brass balance. White enamel dial with a retrograde minute display in the upper half, underneath a semi circular cutout revealing a revolving brass disc engraved with hunting scenes and a window displaying the hours, below a semi circle retrograde scale indicating the quarter hours, the lower part of the dial is decorated with garlands of gold flowers and leaves. Plain case, case maker’s mark TF.
Dial signed, movement numbered, cuvette signed and numbered.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Weight: 135 g
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Signed: Mathieu A Rouen
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A wandering hour complication displays the time by moving a pointer showing the hour across an arc showing the minutes. Watches with such a dial were first seen in the 17th century. In England, they were often commissioned by the King as a gift to visitors or as an appreciation of their loyalty to the government. One of the first watchmakers to adapt this design to a pocket watch was the British watchmaker Joseph Windmills. In 1656, the Campani brothers designed a clock for Pope Alexander XII, who used it as his bedtime alarm. It traditionally consists of a central three- or four armed cross with a disc or cylinder at the end of each arm which rotates to show the current hour and points to the minutes along an arc-shaped track. The complication is fairly straightforward, as each of the 12 hours is evenly divisible by three or four, so each arm can show the same number of hours. Similarly, the dial is divisible according to the number of arms, so a three armed system will show the minutes on a 120º track, while a four armed system uses 90º of the dial.