Extremely rare English ‘six day duration’ watch Circa 1790

Large gilt brass agate watch for the Chinese market
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A fine and extremely rare English ‘six day duration’ large gilt brass coloured paste and carved agate with experimental double spring barrels open faced watch for the Chinese market, circa 1790, frosted gilt full plate movement, ringed cylindrical pillars, foliate engraved back plate furniture, dual wound twin spring barrels secured by a semi circular bridge and sharing a single chain and fusee, maintaining power, duplex escapement, three arm balance with peripheral timing screws, blued steel flat balance spring, diamond endstone, index regulator, experimental 6 day power reserve movement, two body case engraved with swags, the bezels set with red, green and white paste, agate back carved with a stylized flower, gilt brass dust cover.
White enamel with radial Roman numerals, Arabic quarter hour numerals, gold spade hands, large subsidiary seconds, outer minute track, dial and movement signed.
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Diameter: 74 mm
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Signed: William Anthony London
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William Anthony (1765-1844) worked in Red Lion Street, St. John’s Square, Clerkenwell, and specialised in watches for the Chinese market.

This fascinating and possibly unique watch has a specially constructed movement that incorporates two spring barrels. Both barrels are wound with a single chain connected to a single fusee. This gives the watch a duration of approximately six days. The use of the duplex escapement is particularly appropriate as it needs greater power to allow for the large balance arc and high number of vibrations. The use of two spring barrels in a watch of this date is highly unusual although typical of the innovative nature of Anthony’s work. Later, Breguet developed the idea of using the two barrel winding system but in Breguet’s watches and chronometers the barrels run in contra-direction and are usually wound independently. This system was intended as a precision feature to reduce variations in timekeeping rather than purely to extend the duration of the watch.

William Anthony. Born about 1765, William Anthony worked in Red Lion Street, St John?s Square, Clerkenwell, where he made high class, decorative watches for the Chinese market. Characteristic of his production are watches with oval dials and hands which are jointed so as to adjust automatically to the changing radius of the dial as they travel round. As a successful tradesman, Anthony played an active part in the founding of the Watch- and Clock-makers? Benevolent Association in 1815, but thereafter suffered a series of losses following unsuccessful litigation with Grimaldi & Johnson and an ill fated attempt to set up a commercial exhibition in the Somerset Gallery, Strand, of Commonwealth and Stuart costume displayed on wax models. He died in straitened circumstances in 1844.