Splendid English watch for the Chinese market Circa 1765

Gold mounted scent bottle with watch and compass
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A splendid English green glass and gold mounted scent bottle with watch and compass for the Chinese market, circa 1765,  gilded full plate movement, verge escapement, decoratively pierced balance cock engraved with a bird in flight and floral scrolls, fusee and chain, turned pillars, movement signed Wm  Garrett, London.
White enamel time dial, Roman numerals, blued steel beetle and poker hands, winding aperture between 6 and 7 o’clock, the reverse with white enamel compass dial, both dials with garnet-set bezels
Case with emerald green faceted glass overlaid with embossed rococo gold cage-work of scrolls, floral swags, foliage, a bird resting on a vase of fruit above the time dial, an offering in front of a classical pillar above the compass, the bottle’s top with a row of diamonds below a garnet-set stopper surmounted by a watch key, base of the bottle set with diamonds, opening to form a patch box and mirror
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Height: 132 mm   Width: 53 mm
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This sumptuous gold and green glass scent bottle is similar to an example by James Cox which is shown in Edmund Launert’s book, Scent & Scent bottles. The Cox bottle illustrated by Launert is decorated with similar gold cage work to the present example but over blue rather than green glass.  Scent bottles set with both a watch and compass are particularly rare. It is likely that the current bottle was one of a pair made for the Chinese market. Such exotic objects were made to satisfy the increasing demand from China for such fashionable and exotic timepieces. Only two complete pairs of similar scent bottles are known today, one in the Imperial Palace Museum in Beijing; see Timepieces in the Imperial Palace. The second pair by James Cox was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong on 30 May 2011.  William Garrett was working before 1770 and until 1815.