French gold and enamel verge watch with rare case Circa 1800

Gold and enamel verge watch in a special case
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Extremely rare French 18 Carat gold, silver and enamel open faced verge watch, circa 1800.
Scallop shaped case with 12 arched and fine enamelled segments depicting blossoms and musical instruments, a silver midsection and lateral parts gold. Signed white enamel dial with Roman hours, Arabic five minute numerals and original gold hands. Fire gilt verge movement.
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Diameter: 42 mm
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Weight: 49 g
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Signed: Jln Le Roy A Paris
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The present piece was sold 35 years ago for the high price of DM 22,500. A comparable watch was sold in A Geneva auction in 2001 for CHF 20,000.
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Julien Le Roy is one of the clockmakers who contributed most to the progress and the reputation of French watch- and clockmaking. Born in Tours on August 6, 1686, and died in 1759 in Paris. He came to Paris in 1699. In 1713 he achieved his master’s degree and in the following years, he became a jury member of the Paris Guild of Watchmakers. Later, Le Roy became director of the Société des Arts de Genève and, in 1739, Court Watchmaker (French Horloger Ordinaire du Roi) under Louis XV, he had his private quarters in the Louvre. He improved almost all branches of clockmaking and many important inventions in the realm of time measurement are owed to him. In 1717, Julien Le Roy presented an equation clock to the Royal Academy of Sciences which showed the true time, the place of the sun and its decline. His most important discoveries concerned watch mechanisms. The adjustable ‘potence’ for the verge escape wheel considerably improved the escapement’s functioning and the steel end piece (coqueret) which allowed oil to be retained in the balance pivots in order to diminish frictional force, was quickly adopted by other watchmakers. He was the inventor of dumb repeating watches too, in 1740, he created a new arrangement that allowed the area allotted to the repeating work to be enlarged. This invention, called ‘à bâte levée’, was also adopted by his fellow clockmakers. In 1755 he invented a small anker escapement used as a regulator for the repeating train. He contributed to the Encyclopédie by writing several articles on clockmaking together with his son Jean-Baptiste, the Academician. Le Roy ran his workshop in the Rue de Harlay in Paris until his death. Examples of his timepieces can be found in various important museums around the world, such as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum.