Extremely rare English ‘six day duration’ watch Circa 1790

Large gilt brass coloured paste and carved 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, ringed cylindrical pillars, foliate engraved backplate 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.

Watches by William Anthony very rarely appear on the market. From a study of the public collections and the auction market over the last 50 years we learn that less than 30 (from which 6 with expanding hands and 15 round watches) are known to exist. Most of them were or still are part of famous collections as the Collection of King Farouk of Egypt, the Sir David Salomon Collection, the Marryat Collection, the Sandoz Collection at Musée du Locle, the Lord Sandberg Collection, the Patek Philippe Museum. One oval watch was sold in the Belin Collection at Sotheby’s London, in November 1979, as lot 100 as the most expensive lot of the sale and recorded as the most expensive watch for that year.