Swiss unique 18 carat gold and enamel lever watch Circa 1887

Gold enamelled 17th century Blois style watch
–
A very fine numbered pocket watch with an enamel painting in the 17th century style of Blois made by Eduard Koehn in Genève, Switzerland, circa 1887. The open faced case of this watch was crafted from 18 carat gold and is special because of the absence of hinges, it bears the maker’s mark AE, is completely enamelled with a polychrome enamel painting in the Watteau style on the back showing a pair of lovers under a tree with mountain scenery in the background. The white enamel dial has an inner ring with Roman hour numerals, an outer minute track with Arabic five minute numerals and pink gold Louis XIV gold hands. The movement is completely removable, has a glazed, silver movement holder and fine lever escapement.
Case and movement have matching numbers and the movement is signed.
–
Diameter: 24 mm
–
Weight: 24 g
–
Signed: E. Koehn Genève
–
The similarity to the Patek Philippe watches 84141 and 76344 sold for € 18.500 in one of the past auctions is obvious. The unusual construction of the cases, the dials and the paintings are very similar in all three watches. All watches have numbers close together. All movements have silver holders that can be completely removed from the case and are not hinged. It can be strongly assumed, that the same case maker made the two special Patek Philippe watches and the Koehn watch shown here. The fact that Eduard Koehn was a director at Patek Philippe at the time of the production of these three timepieces also speaks for this.

Eduard Koehn (1839-1908) went from a watchmaker to director at Patek Philippe. He was born in Germany and studied at the watchmaking school in Geneva. He started as a simple watchmaker with Patek Philippe and later became a partner. In 1891, Eduard Koehn bought the company H.R. Ekegren. The quality awareness he got during his many years at Patek Philippe was later reflected in his own products, which he designed and manufactured.