Unique Swiss musical verge for the Chinese market Circa 1790

Gold and enamel automaton attributed to Dubois et Fils
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A unique Swiss 18 Carat rose gold and enamel double sided musical verge pocket watch of museum quality with two automata made for the Chinese market, circa 1790. The traveller and his dancing dog. Full plate movement, cylindrical pillars, a barrel, chain and fusee, verge escapement, three arm brass balance, blued balance spring, musical movement with a barrel with pins, nine vibrating blades, planetary gearing set under the platform commanding the dancers’ rotation. White enamel dial with Arabic numerals, outer minute divisions and winding arbours at 2 o’clock for the watch and at 4 o’clock for the musical movement and the automatons. The front and back of the case are glazed, the band is pierced and engraved with flowers and tendrils. The automaton scene on the case back shows a traveller and his dog moving to the music in a finely decorated gazebo raised on columns, the man wears a blue and red costume and a wide brimmed hat, the dog balances on its hind legs and moves up and down in tune with its dancing master, the man’s staff and knapsack are resting under a three colour gold oak tree and a house is visible behind it on the left, in the front is some grass with a pair of potted plants on the right, the background shows an exquisite polychrome enamel painting of a monastery on a riverside – most likely the former Benedictine monastery at Beinwil in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. Comes with a contemporary watch key.
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Diameter: 59 mm
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Weight: 143 g
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Dubois et Fils, Le Locle and Geneva. The company Philippe Dubois (1738-1808) established became famous for being one of the most important companies in the Neuchâtel area for over two centuries.
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The traveller and his dancing dog is a truly unique and striking automaton scene. No other like it is known ever used for a watch. With the exception of the watch from the Gélis collection, they are all based on similar ebauches, which strongly suggests that they were all created by the same maker. The movement of this watch is consistent with the high quality creations of the makers in the Neuchâtel area. We know similar movements from other automaton watches, particularly those signed by Dubois et Fils, from which we may conclude that they were either made by him or that he was associated with the workshop that produced them. Some Duchêne et Fils watches as well as watches by other makers are also fitted with those movements. Duchêne et Fils, as well as Dubois et Fils, are famous for having created some of the most extravagant automaton watches of all time: there are for example the “Tightrope Dancer” from the Sandberg Watch Collection, as well as “Moses” and of course, the “Theatre”.
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The art of the automaton in Geneva. During the 1780s, Geneva opened a most intriguing chapter of horological history. The city developed, with great flair, the art of automatons: machines designed to imitate the movements of live beings or creatures. They ranged from the simplest forms, where a figure’s moving arms could point to the time, to complex, full scale productions, such as pastoral scenes, theatre pieces or concerts. Automata were soon being used to animate a wide variety of objects, such as scent bottles, amphorae, mirrors or snuff boxes, their use as timepieces was often merely a pretext for possessing these exquisite creations. And since where there is life, there is sound, the automata were fitted with a musical mechanism. The acknowledged masters of this marriage between ornamental watches and automata included Pierre Morand, Henry Capt, Isaac Daniel Piguet and Philippe Samuel Meylan, Duchêne et Fils and Dubois et Fils as well as the Jaquet Droz workshop in Geneva, with colleagues and successors Jean-Frédéric Leschot and Jacob Frisard. All were the brilliant creators of musical watches functioning first with chiming bells and later with a cylinder or pin drum that caused a comb made up of a set of blades to vibrate. These watches were especially prized in the East and during trade with Turkey and China they acquired a subtle local touch, a discreetly exotic charm that makes them easy to distinguish today.