Swiss 18k gold minute repeating lever dress watch Circa 1910

Gold keyless lever by Paul Ditisheim
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A very fine, thin and elegant Swiss, minute repeating 18K gold and enamel keyless dress watch, circa 1910. The case with London import marks for 1910-1911. A polished band, the bezel decorated with double white enamel lines, the back cover overlaid with Royal blue enamel over an engine-turned ground, white enamel line border to match the bezel. Hinged gold cuvette. Matte champagne dial, champlevé Breguet numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds, flinqué centre. Blued steel Breguet hands. A rhodium-plated movement, inscribed Grand Prix, Paris 1900, 31 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Dial and case signed.
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Diameter: 47 mm
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Signed: Paul Ditisheim  La Chaux de Fonds
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Paul Ditisheim (1868-1945) was born on October 28th, 1868, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He died in Geneva on February 7th, 1945. After early training in Switzerland, he studied in Berlin and Paris, arriving in England in 1891, where he worked as a technician at the Rotherham factory in Coventry. He started his own manufacture at La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1892, specializing in very high precision watches and jewelled watches. Success in both spheres followed rapidly, and he won many honours for adjusted watches, especially at the Neuchâtel and Kew Observatories. He collaborated with Dr Ch. E. Guillaume in the use of both the Guillaume ‘integral’ balance and the Elinvar-type of auto compensating balance spring. He also contributed many papers to scientific and horological journals and was associated with Dr Paul Woog, an oil chemist, in the development of Chronax oils.