French watch with Martin-Pouzait early French lever Circa 1790

Gold quarter repeating fast beating Martin Pouzait lever by DeBelle
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A very fine and extremely rare French 18 Carat gold open faced quarter repeating lever pocket watch with fast beating Martin-Pouzait early French lever escapement, circa 1790. Frosted gilt movement, cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, maintaining power, the top plate cut away for the barrel which 32 is held by a separate bridge, fast beating Martin-Pouzait lever escapement with safety action, the plate with aperture to view the escapement, three armed brass balance, the anchor pivot hole with steel endplate, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator with scale on the perimeter of the balance cock, repeating with two polished steel hammers on a bell in the back of the case activated by depressing the pendant. Hinged and sprung gilt metal cuvette with pinhole release catch. White enamel dial with Breguet numerals, outer gold painted minute track, gold painted signature, winding aperture at 2 o’clock, gilt brass dial plate edge engraved with a repeated leaf pattern and original gold heart hands. Plain case, concealed hinge, rectangular pendant with sloping shoulders.
Dial, dial plate edge and cuvette signed.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Signed: DeBelle Rue St. Honore à Paris
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The case of the present watch is almost identical in shape to those used by Breguet from 1787 and through the 1790s. It appears that DeBelle was experimenting with various forms of lever escapement during this very early period of the use of the lever escapement in France. This watch is amongst the earliest French watches to be fitted with a lever escapement.
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The Martin-Pouzait escapement is a rapid beating escapement that was used by mostly French watchmakers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, it was also used by one or two English makers, notably Recordon. It is a variation of Pouzait’s famous seconds beating lever escapement but instead of having a large balance and slow beat, the Martin-Pouzait has a smaller balance and fast beat but uses the same design of lever. In 1786 Jean Moïse Pouzait (1743-1793) presented a model of his lever escapement to the Geneva Society of Arts. The idea seems to derive from the pin wheel escapement in clocks and as in the pin wheel there was no safety action (later ones, including this watch, have the safety action). There are some differences, however: Pouzait’s pallets are not just pins, they are small pin like rectangular teeth, so in fact it is an escapement with divided lift. Pouzait was one of the first to introduce the lever escapement to the Continent.
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Jean-François DeBelle is listed by Tardy as becoming master in 1781 and working in the Rue St. Honore between 1787 and 1800.