English pear shaped duplex for the Chinese market Circa 1820

Gold, enamel and pearl set center seconds duplex by Ilbery
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An extremely fine and rare English 18 carat gold, enamel and pearl set pear shaped duplex pocket watch with center seconds made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. Gilt ‘Chinese’ caliber, entirely foliate chased and engraved, standing barrel, duplex escapement, three arm gold balance with three steel screws, blued steel flat balance spring, diamond end stone, index regulator. Hinged and sprung gold cuvette overlaid with translucent guilloché scarlet enamel within a gold, white and pale green enamel scalloped border. White enamel with Roman numerals, outer minute and seconds divisions, Arabic quarter hour numerals, original blued steel pierced hands. Pear shaped case, the bezel set with split pearls, the band, stem and bow decorated with pale green, blue, white and red champlevé enamel, hinged and sprung scallop edged back cover set with a finely painted panel of summer flowers and fruit within a gold and enamel wavy line border. Movement signed.
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Dimensions excl. pendant: 63 x 53 mm
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Signed: Ilbery London
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William Ilbery (?-1839). Active in London from 1780. Following James Cox in London and Jaquet Droz in Switzerland, he specialized in luxury watches made for the Chinese market. His early production was in the English style, with a full plate movement and an English type single wheel duplex escapement, however for his highest quality watches he incorporated a spring detent escapement. The cases were in the style of those made in England at the time. Later, along with Jaquet Droz’s Swiss production signed in London and that of William Anthony who worked in London, his watch movements were much inspired by the Lépine calibre with a free-standing barrel. He set a new standard for watches made for the Asian market. He had profusely engraved movements made in Switzerland, mainly in Fleurier. He was followed in this by makers such as Bovet and Juvet. Bovet and Juvet organized the mass production of silver cased watches and later, once their Canton manufactures were opened, assembled them in China. Ilbery can therefore be considered the ‘father’ of ‘Chinese’ watches as they are known today. Ilbery’s watch cases were decorated by Geneva’s best enamelers, such as Jean-Francois-Victor Dupont and Jean-Louis Richter. He seems to have maintained close contacts with the continental trade since a watch signed ‘Ilbery Paris’ is known and Ilbery & Son are recorded in London and Fleurier, as well as in Canton. ‘Chinese’ watches were often sold in pairs and therefore each pair was fitted in a specially designed box. Whenever such pairs of watches were enamelled, they were always painted in a symmetrically opposed manner, like mirror images.