Exceptional Swiss gold quarter repeating automaton Circa 1820

Gold automaton watch made for the Chinese market
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An extremely fine and extremely rare, large Swiss, 18K gold, painted on enamel and pearl-set, quarter-repeating automaton watch, circa 1820. The Barking Dog by Piguet & Meylan, Geneva, made for the Chinese market. An Empire case, the bezel and border of translucent imperial blue enamel set with graduated split-pearls, the band decorated with light blue, red and white enamel lozenges and flowerheads, the hinged and sprung back cover set with a very fine painted on enamel panel decorated with a bouquet of summer flowers against a pale green ground aperture for the sound at six o’clock, opening automatically when barking is activated, bolt at 10 o’clock to lock the repeat. Hinged gilt metal cuvette.
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Eccentric, gold dial, set at the top of a translucent imperial blue enamel engine-turned plate, polished Roman numerals, outer dot minute divisions and engine-turned centre, lower part with applied varicoloured gold automaton scene of a dog barking at a swan which appears to be hissing back, the dog nodding its head with each movement of the bellows. Blued steel Breguet hands. A gilt brass half-plate movement, free-standing barrel, cylinder escapement, steel escape wheel, plain three-arm brass balance, flat balance spring, index regulator, the repeating barking mechanism with round bellows and whistle activated by depressing the pendant. Punched with the maker’s mark PM in a lozenge inside the cuvette, the case back panel stamped with the case maker’s mark I.E in a lozenge.
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Diameter: 60 mm
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Signed: Piguet & Meylan  Geneva
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The present watch repeats the hours and quarters with the sound of a barking dog, the rarest form of repeating. The scene is taken after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, (1686-1755) Swan Attacked by a Dog, of which he painted several copies in the 1740s. The case of the present watch is particularly fine and one of the grandest cases known for a barking dog watch. It has survived in remarkable condition and would have been destined for the Imperial Chinese court. It is now known that Piguet & Meylan used at least two separate numbering series. The barking dog series numbers are usually lower than 300. The other types of watches bear numbers up to the 7000s, one watch is known in the 9000s. It is likely that the company began its production with the barking dog models, then proceeded to other ones, but continued the production of the barking dog watches with the first series of numbers.