English gold and enamel triple cased verge watch Circa 1810

Gold watch made for the Ottoman market
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A very fine English 18 carat gold and enamel triple cased pocket watch made for the Ottoman market by Markwick Markham and Francis Perigal in London, circa 1810. The full plate movement with chain and fusee, a verge escapement and three arm steel balance. White enamel dial with Turkish numerals and moon hands. The glazed, scalloped outer case with polychrome champlevé enamel floral and foliate decoration, the scalloped second case features applied four colour gold floral tendrils and, on the reverse, a polychrome painted bouquet of summer flowers on a red translucent enamelled guilloché ground, the inner case is smooth. It has a diamond pusher for opening the case and bears maker’s mark IK. Dial and movement signed, case and movement with matching numbers.
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Diameter: 51 mm
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Weight: 100 g
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Signed: Markwick Markham – Perigal London
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Both the watch technology used and the case design of timepieces for the Turkish market were already antiquated at this time, i.e. around 1810 and even later, but Edward Prior and some of his contemporaries, such as George Prior II, George Charle, Markwick Markham-Perigal and Isaac Rogers specialized in the production of such watches because the Turkish market in particular continued to demand them, be it from tradition or from the joy of the exquisitely decorated movements and cases. It is certainly right to say that many of these watches, and this certainly includes the present one, never left England because their exotic beauty found them enthusiastic fans in their own country, who placed them in their drawers as pieces of jewellery, hence often, as in this particular case, the extremely well preserved condition of these precious items.