French gold and bloodstone watch with chatelaine Circa 1850  

Gold and bloodstone, diamond and ruby-set pendant watch
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A very fine French gold and bloodstone, diamond and ruby-set open faced pendant watch with matching chatelaine, circa 1850.
Gilt Lépine movement, cylinder escapement, jewelled.
Gold cuvette with French hallmark. White enamel dial with Roman numerals. The case back with a bloodstone, later gold monogram. Accompanied by the original presentation box and a gold and bloodstone clover-form chatelaine decorated with a diamond and ruby set star motif, a complementary bloodstone, golden E seal and a key.
Cuvette signed.
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Diameter: 28 mm
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Length chatelaine: 80 mm
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Signed: Philipe Paris passage de choiseul 16 & 18
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Bloodstone is a beautiful, mostly, dark green stone that features red or brown spots that form as a result of impurities in the iron oxide. These spots look like blood splatters, giving the stone its English name. The stone is also referred to as a heliotrope, and gets this name from the Greek words helio, meaning ‘sun’, and tropos, meaning ‘toward the sun’. It’s said that the colour is also reminiscent of heliotrope plants that face towards the sun. The solid green colour that encompasses the rest of the stone is brought in as a result of the amphibole or Chlorite minerals found in the green Chalcedony. Chalcedony is a cryptocrystalline form of silica that’s composed of fine intergrowths of moganite and quartz, the minerals that make up most agate stones too. Because of its varied composition, the green in bloodstone is not always evenly distributed and may have blue or yellow streaks in addition to green. It has been a popular gemstone for at least two thousand years.