Early English enamel verge watch in a silver case Circa 1700

Silver and enamel open faced pocket watch
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A fine and early English silver and enamel open faced verge pocket watch, circa 1700. The case back with a polychrome enamel scene after the painting Roman Charity or Cimon and Pero by Peter Paul Rubens, the inside of the back cover and the band with cartouches showing en grisaille enamel paintings, silver pendant and bow, the enamelling in the style of the famous Huaud brothers. White enamel dial with Roman hours and Arabic five minute numerals, steel hands. Fire gilt full plate movement with Egyptian pillars, pierced and engraved cock with steel coqueret, pierced and engraved foot and plate for the silver regulator disc, fusee and chain, plain three arm steel balance, blue steel spiral hairspring.
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Diameter: 51 mm
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Weight: 125 g
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Signed: No name
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Roman Charity refers to the ancient story of a Roman woman who secretly breastfed her father who was sentenced to die of starvation in prison. It is an oil on canvas painting by Peter Paul Rubens executed around 1612, now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Rubens also returned to the subject in the painting Cimon and Pero executed in 1630, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
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Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen on June 28, 1577, and he died in Antwerp on May 30, 1640. He was a Flemish baroque painter, draughtsman, tapestry designer and diplomat, who worked in Antwerp. He was also called Pieter Paul, Pieter Pauwel or Petrus Paulus.
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Les Frères Huaut (or Huaud). The cases painted on enamel by ‘Les deux Frères Huaut’ were among the finest examples of their kind from the Geneva School and were not only highly valued when originally made, but remained as art treasures in the centuries that followed. Pierre I was the founder of the Huaud dynasty. He was born in 1612 in Geneva as the son of a French goldsmith Jean Huaud. He settled in Geneva in 1630 and three of his 11 children became famous enamellists like their father: Pierre II (1647-1698), Jean-Pierre (1655-1723) and Ami (1657-1724). The brothers were most likely trained by their father and worked with him. Pierre II started his own business around 1680. Jean-Pierre and Ami became partners in 1682 and were appointed painters to the Prussian court in 1686 when they moved to Berlin and started working for Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg (1620-1688). Among their most well-known works are Diana and Actaeon, The Judgement of Paris, The Holy Family, St. John the Baptist, The Nativity and The Adoration of the Shepherds.
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A grisaille (en grisaille), or grey painting, is a painting in which one does not apply natural colours but restricts oneself to depicting things in all possible shades of the same colour, usually grey or brown.
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Reference 054000