Magnificent English gold/enamel musical watch Circa 1810

Gold cylinder pocket watch
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An important, rare and large gold/enamel pocket watch with music movement and pearls by Barraud’s, Cornhill  London, circa 1810. An 18 carat gold, both sides with half pearls, reeded mid section, back with very fine enameled painting of best Genèva quality “summer flower bouquet”, switch lever of musical mechanism on the case edge, ruby cylinder escapement, splendid engraved balance cage, mirror polished, undamaged preserved, numbered enamel dial, roman numerals, golden hands, in working order, excellent, original preserved condition, collector’s piece of museum standard.
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Diameter: 62 mm
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Weight: 178 g
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Signed:  Barraud’s  London
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Enamel pocket watches by Paul Philipp Barraud (1750-1820) are very rare watches for the Chinese market. They stand for the highest quality of Geneva watch cases, equipped with the finest musical mechanisms. A comparable enamel watch of Barraud 9591 was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2011 for over 90,000 Swiss francs, which was equipped with a normal movement without music mechanism. An enamel watch of such a quality with music mechanism is a collector’s piece of museum standard and always sold high-priced. Paul Philipp Barraud (1750-1820) was an English watchmaker from London. His parents were Francis Gabriel Barraud and Magadalen Benine, who was a daughter of a well-known Huguenot silversmith. In 1796 he became a member of the Clockmakers Company in London and became master in 1810/11. After that, he set a partnership with George Jamieson and William Howells. He had seven children and his sons Frederick Joseph, John and James followed him within the business. Between 1796 and 1820 they produced more than 1,000 chronometers. Around 1810 the company Barraud started to export finest enamel watches to China, whose cases were always made in Genèva and have always 9000-s numbers.