French gold and enamel à tact repeating verge watch Circa 1750

Decorative gold open faced quarter repeater
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A decorative 18 Carat gold French, painted on enamel and diamond set, a dumb quarter repeating pocket watch with à tact option, circa 1750. A Louis XV chased bezel decorated with enamel flowers, the back decorated with a scene of a gentleman in his boudoir attended by two ladies, border decorated to match the bezel, thumb piece set with an old cut diamond.

White enamel dial with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and Arabic five minute numerals, winding aperture at 2 o’clock, chased foliate dial plate, rose cut diamond set hour hand. A hinged gilt brass full plate movement with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement with plain steel three arm balance, flat balance spring, pierced and foliate chased continental type balance cock, polished steel end piece, silver regulation dial, repeating on the case activated by depressing the pendant. Movement signed.
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Diameter: 47 mm
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Signed: Julien Le Roy Paris
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Julien Le Roy is one of the clockmakers who contributed most to the progress and the reputation of French watch- and clockmaking. Born in Tours on August 6, 1686, and died in 1759 in Paris. He came to Paris in 1699. In 1713 he achieved his master’s degree and in the following years, he became a jury member of the Paris Guild of Watchmakers. Later, Le Roy became director of the Société des Arts de Genève and, in 1739, Court Watchmaker (French Horloger Ordinaire du Roi) under Louis XV, he had his private quarters in the Louvre. He improved almost all branches of clockmaking and many important inventions in the realm of time measurement are owed to him. In 1717, Julien Le Roy presented an equation clock to the Royal Academy of Sciences which showed the true time, the place of the sun and its decline. His most important discoveries concerned watch mechanisms. The adjustable ‘potence’ for the verge escape wheel considerably improved the escapement’s functioning and the steel end-piece (coqueret) which allowed oil to be retained in the balance pivots in order to diminish frictional force, was quickly adopted by other watchmakers. He was the inventor of dumb repeating watches too, in 1740, he created a new arrangement that allowed the area allotted to the repeating work to be enlarged. This invention, called ‘à bâte levée’, was also adopted by his fellow clockmakers. In 1755 he invented a small anchor escapement used as a regulator for the repeating train. He contributed to the Encyclopédie by writing several articles on clockmaking together with his son Jean-Baptiste, the Academician. Le Roy ran his workshop in the Rue de Harlay in Paris until his death. Examples of his timepieces can be found in various important museums around the world, such as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
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Montre à tact. A type of watch made after 1795 by Abraham Louis Breguet to give time by touch. In the late eighteenth century it was considered impolite to consult one’s watch in company, a question of etiquette which the à tact watch helped to solve (the French tact, meaning touch, has given the English tact and tactful). Knobs representing the hours are positioned around the case with a large hand that could be turned until it met resistance. Its position in relation to the knobs gave the time. This kind of tactile watch is now mainly used by the blind and visually impaired.