French 18 carat gold watch with wandering hours Circa 1820

Gold cylinder pocket watch by Breguet et Fils
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A fine French 18K gold eight-day wandering hour pocket watch Chronos-Breguet, circa 1820. Gilt brass movement with unusual bridge calibre, six jewels, free-standing barrel, cylinder escapement, plain three-arm gold balance, flat balance spring, balance and escape wheel jewelled, free-standing barrel, third and fourth wheels in skeletonised steel bridge. Case stamped inside back cover PHPI with later French gold marks, signed cuvette and engine-turned back cover, fluted band, gilt spring-loaded cuvette. White enamel segment with minute divisions and Arabic numerals set on the top of a gold mask engraved with the figure of Chronos, wandering Arabic blued steel hour numerals passing through the aperture, indicating the correct minute. Cuvette signed Etablissement mixte Breguet, the dial engraved Breguet et Fils.
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Diameter: 61 mm
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Signed: Breguet et Fils
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The Etablissement Mixte series consisted of watches made outside Breguet’s shop under his supervision. The escapements, he claimed, were made in his shop. It was previously thought that this register was lost or never existed, but Etablissement Mixte watches have their register, which is in the company’s possession. It begins with No. 1 in 1806 and continues to No. 2421 in 1832. All kinds of watches and clocks are recorded, some quite unusual. Since the Etablissement Mixte register is not numbered, it is difficult (but not impossible) to locate it in the book. Watches with a wandering hour dial first appeared in the 17th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Breguet sold many wandering hour watches with a system patented in about 1925 by Robert Cart.