Extremely rare verge made for the Chinese market Circa 1815

Gold, enamel and pearl set verge attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou
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An extremely fine and equally rare Swiss 18 carat gold, enamel and pearl set open faced two train verge watch with automaton fire and concealed erotic automaton with rare painted figures made for the Chinese market circa 1815. Gilt brass full plate movement with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain for the going train, verge escapement, plain brass three armed balance with flat balance spring, the balance pivots with steel endplates, regulation lever in the dial plate, automaton driven by an independent train with going barrel and five wheel train, eccentrically mounted and adjustable pinion as the governor, driving the automata by means of wheels and pinions. White enamel dial with Roman numerals, outer dot and star minute divisions, apertures for winding both trains and original gold skeleton hands. Polished case, glazed on both sides, the bezels, pendant and bow set with split pearls, fluted band, polished concave sections interspersed with panels of six seed pearls each, very fine chased and engraved vari-coloured gold scene applied over a magnificent painted ground depicting a drawing room, with blue walls, green ceiling and red curtains, a portrait on the wall and a mirror over the fireplace, an old lady and cat sitting by a fire with a blued steel grate and automaton fire with reflective gilt backing, a dog opposite sits by a tilted basket of flowers by which lie a hat and cane, an engraved gold curtain rises by a lever under the bezel to reveal an erotic automaton scene with painted male and female figures on a bed.  Numbered on the dial plate.
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Diameter: 59 mm
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Signed: No name
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This form of automaton watch with very fine Geneva enamel scene but with almost two dimensional painted automaton figures is extremely rare and the present watch is in particularly good condition. It can be quite firmly attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou for several reasons, firstly, there are close visual similarities to Gounouilhou’s famous ‘kitchen’ automaton watches and indeed the chased and engraved gold mounts in the scene are very similar in theme and design, with the old lady by the fire with a dog and cat and overturned basket of flowers (basket of vegetables in the ‘kitchen’ watches). More importantly, this watch employs a fusee and chain for the going train, rarely found in Swiss watches but always used in Gounouilhou’s known watches. The use of a verge escapement rather than the cylinder is also typical, as is the separately wound train for the automaton rather than it being driven from a repeating mechanism. No more than a dozen automaton watches are attributable to Gounouilhou and the present watch appears to be the only recorded erotic watch attributable to him. 
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Pierre Simon Gounouilhou (1779-1847) was born in 1779, settled in Geneva (Quai Neuf en l’Isle, No. 241) in 1799. An imaginative maker of great repute, he produced automata and musical objects and watches, ring watches with virgule escapement and quarter repeating, watches with cases using unusual decorative techniques such as granulation. He left very interesting shop notes with an abundance of information about the habits and customs of early 19th century Geneva watchmakers.