Swiss repeating automaton for Chinese market Circa 1810

Gold, enamel and pearl-set quarter repeating automaton
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A small Swiss gold, enamel and pearl-set open faced quarter repeating automaton watch made for the Chinese market, circa 1810. Gilt movement, cylinder escapement. Gold cuvette engraved with a trophy of music enhanced by polychrome opaque and translucent enamel. A small eccentric white enamel dial at 12 o’clock on the front with Arabic hours and outer minute divisions, above an applied varicoloured gold automaton scene of a dog barking at a cat, the plunge repeat activating the quarters and bellows for the dog barking and his nodding head, all against a translucent blue enamel engine-turned ground, the case back inlaid with a, possibly later, translucent red enamelled panel heightened by a circle of gold paillons. Cuvette and movement stamped PM within a lozenge for Piguet & Meylan, the movement, case, bezels and cuvette stamped 275.
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Diameter: 39 mm
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Signed: Piguet & Meylan
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Piguet & Meylan are both originally from the village of Le Chenit in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. 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.

They employed two numbering systems. Their ‘Barking Dog’ series all have numbers lower than 300. Approximately twenty ‘Barking Dog’ watches are known today and, according to research, this may be the first time that the present piece, No. 275, has appeared on the market. The sound of a barking dog is ingeniously reproduced by a set of bellows activated by pushing the pendant, thus also marking the hours and quarters. To achieve the sound, the mechanism exerts sharp pressure on miniature bellows connected to a whistle vented through an open aperture on the case side.

The majority of the ‘Barking Dog’ automata known are larger than this watch with a diameter of 59 mm, which is significantly larger than the remarkably small, 39 mm of the present watch. Only one of the ‘Barking Dog’ watches with a diameter of 39 mm has been on the market. The latter is stamped No. 282, only seven numbers away from the present piece. The 2007 catalogue of Antiquorum makes a reference to the existence of one other in this small size, which is likely this watch.

The ‘Barking Dog’ automata were typically produced with a dog and a swan, presumably based on engravings of Jean Baptiste, Oudry’s famous painting of the subject, whereas the theme of the present watch, featuring a dog and a cat, is found in perhaps less than half a dozen pieces. For further information on barking dogs with cats, see Bernard Pin, Watches and Automata The Maurice Sandoz Collection, cat. I. 22, pag. 134-139. 

The incomparable Bohemian painter Johann Wenzel Peter (1745-1829) who lived and worked in Rome from 1774, specialized in painting animals in conflict. His design of a dog barking at a cat (though not identical to this) was much copied by Roman mosaicists after it was first recorded in the studio of the mosaicist Puglieschi in 1805/1806. An example signed by Gioacchino Barberi (1783-1857) is set into the lid of a contemporary gold box by A.J. Strachan, London, 1807/1808, and is now in the Gilbert Collection, London. Another example, in a private collection, signed by the mosaicist Domenico Moglia (1780-1862) is also set into the lid of a snuff box by Strachan, again of 1807/1808, the base is set with a micro mosaic of a dog barking at a swan. It is not inconceivable that Piguet & Meylan were aware of these fashionable mosaics, since many were bought as plaques by travelers on the Grand Tour and mounted by Geneva gold box makers.