Swiss automaton watch made for the Chinese market Circa 1820

Gold repeating automaton watch with musical movement
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An extremely fine Swiss equally rare and very unusual 18K gold quarter repeating automaton watch made for the Chinese market, circa 1820. The musical movement by Isaac Daniel Piguet & Philippe Samuel Meylan, the case by Frères Oltramare. Incorporates the exceptionally rare feature of three automata and a musical movement playing music on the hour or at will. An Empire case, polished and reeded bezels, engine-turned band and back, aperture for the sound at 8 o’clock, opening automatically when barking is activated. Hinged gilt metal cuvette. Eccentric white enamel dial with radial Roman hours, an outer minute track and blued steel lozenge hands surrounded by a polychrome enamel country scene, the lower half with an applied varicoloured gold automaton scene of a dog barking at a cat on a fence, the dog moving its head and the cat moving its tail with each movement of the bellows, a seated lady playing the guitar moves her arm, the whole on applied gold grass with foliage. Gilt-brass ½ plate movement, free-standing barrel, cylinder escapement, brass escape wheel, three-arm gold balance, flat balance spring, index regulator, the repeating barking mechanism with round bellows and whistle activated by depressing the pendant, sur plateau musical movement with pinned brass disc and 22 tuned steel teeth, activated on the hour or at will. Case stamped FO for Frères Oltramare, movement and cuvette stamped PM for Piguet & Meylan, the movement also scratch signed on the dial plate Fait par I.D. Piguet & Philippe Meylan à Genève. 
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Signed: Piguet & Meylan Geneva
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The former property of a European collector.
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The present watch not only repeats the hours and quarters with the sound of a barking dog, the rarest form of repeating but is also musical and comes with two extra automata. There are only about 20 of these watches (without music or extra automata) known, of which the majority are after Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s painting ‘Dog Attacked by a Swan’. This timepiece with the more realistic scene of a dog barking at a cat is extremely rare and with the addition of the two extra automata and music probably unique. The inscription scratched on the dial plate, fait par I.D. Piguet et Philippe Meylan à Genève, is also present in the barking dog watches. The barking dog series numbers are usually lower than 300, this watch would therefore be at the end of the series and final development of the type with the far more complex mechanism and unusual dial scene.

Piguet & Meylan were both originally from the village of Le Chenit in the Vallée de Joux, Isaac Daniel Piguet (1775-1841) and Philippe Samuel Meylan (1772- 1845) came to Geneva as young men and formed a partnership that lasted from 1811 to 1828. The company specialized in elaborate and beautifully decorated musical watches, including skeleton and automaton watches and mechanical animals. The firm was established at 45, Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau in Geneva. After their association came to an end, both Piguet and Meylan continued for some time to work with their sons.