Fine and rare Dutch open faced enamel verge watch Circa 1685

Gilt metal and gold pair cased watch
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A very fine and rare Dutch gold, gilt metal and painted enamel on copper pair-cased watch, circa 1685. A protective outer case, glazed back, bezels chased and engraved with stylized foliage, the inner case with deep back and inward edges, a polychrome enamel scene after the painting Roman Charity or Cimon and Pero by Peter Paul Rubens on the back, the band with four vignettes depicting rural scenes, on the inside a painting in a camaïeu of ocher, with an en grisaille traveller in an alpine landscape, the enamel signed Les Frères Huaut.

White enamel dial with radial Roman hours, an outer minute ring with Arabic five-minute markers, winding aperture at three o’clock and diamond-set hands. Hinged gilt-brass full plate movement, Egyptian pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain steel three-arm balance, flat balance spring, Dutch style elaborate cock with large pierced and engraved feet, matching plaque over Tompion type regulator.
Signed on the movement, case signed by the enameller.
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Diameter: 52 mm
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Signed: Daniel Poeterik Dordrecht
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Roman Charity refers to the ancient story of a Roman woman who secretly breastfed her father who was sentenced to die of starvation in prison. It is an oil on canvas painting by Peter Paul Rubens executed around 1612, now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Rubens also returned to the subject in the painting Cimon and Pero executed in 1630, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
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Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen on June 28, 1577, and he died in Antwerp on May 30, 1640. He was a Flemish baroque painter, draughtsman, tapestry designer and diplomat, who worked in Antwerp. He was also called Pieter Paul, Pieter Pauwel or Petrus Paulus.
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Les Frères Huaut (or Huaud). The cases painted on enamel by ‘Les deux Frères Huaut’ were among the finest examples of their kind from the Geneva School and were not only highly valued when originally made, but remained as art treasures in the centuries that followed. Pierre I was the founder of the Huaud dynasty. He was born in 1612 in Geneva as the son of a French goldsmith Jean Huaud. He settled in Geneva in 1630 and three of his 11 children became famous enamellists like their father: Pierre II (1647-1698), Jean-Pierre (1655-1723) and Ami (1657-1724). The brothers were most likely trained by their father and worked with him. Pierre II started his own business around 1680. Jean-Pierre and Ami became partners in 1682 and were appointed painters to the Prussian court in 1686 when they moved to Berlin and started working for Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg (1620-1688). Among their most well-known works are Diana and Actaeon, The Judgement of Paris, The Holy Family, St. John the Baptist, The Nativity and The Adoration of the Shepherds.
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Camaïeu is a technique that employs two or three tints of a single colour, other than grey, to create a monochromatic image without regard to local or realistic colour.
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A grisaille (en grisaille), or grey painting, is a painting in which one does not apply natural colours but restricts oneself to depicting things in all possible shades of the same colour, usually grey or brown.