French gold, enamel and diamond verge pocket watch Circa 1780

Gold quarter repeater à toc 
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A very fine and small French, 18K gold painted-on enamel and rose-cut diamond-set quarter repeating watch with à toc feature, circa 1780. A Louis XVI case with a diamond set thumbpiece, the rose-diamond set bezel chased with a repeated intertwined foliage pattern against a matted ground, the back centred with a fine enamel panel depicting two children and two doves on a cage in a rose-diamond set frame, outer applied rose-diamond set flowers and leaves on a matted ground, the pierced border to match the bezel. White enamel dial with radial Roman numerals and outer Arabic minute ring and rose diamond set elaborate hands. A hinged gilt brass, full plate movement with conical pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement, plain brass three arm-balance, flat balance spring, gilt brass continental cock with polished steel end-piece, silvered regulation dial, repeating on a bell in the back of the case activated by depressing the pendant. Dial and movement signed.
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Diameter: 34 mm
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Signed: L’Epine  Paris
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The case of this watch has survived in very good condition. The beautiful and charming enamel panel depicting two children is enhanced by the delicately set rose diamonds. Jean-Antoine Lépine (1720-1814). Was born at Challex, a small village a few kilometers north of Geneva. He went to Paris in 1744. A workman for André Charles Caron, the King’s Clockmaker, he married his employer’s daughter in 1756 and was received Master in 1765. He was made Horloger du Roi (King’s Clockmaker) about 1765. In 1766 he succeeded Caron. In 1772, Lépine established himself in the Place Dauphine, in 1778-1779, Quai de l’Horloge du Palais, then in the rue des Fossés Saint Germain l’Auxerrois near the Louvre in 1781, and finally at 12 Place des Victoires in 1789. In 1782, his daughter Pauline married Claude-Pierre Raguet, with whom he formed a partnership in 1792. In 1763 he invented a repeating mechanism for watches, which was published in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences in 1766. His revolutionary new calibre, in which the rear plate was replaced by bridges, was invented circa 1770.
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The use of a dead-beat escapement allowed him to eliminate the fusee. Lépine also invented the virgule escapement, a simplification of the double virgule escapement invented by his father-in-law and used by his brother-in-law Pierre Augustin Caron (who became famous under the name of Beaumarchais). He developed a new type of case with concealed hinges and a fixed bezel. Lépine went often to the Gex countryside, particularly to Ferney where Voltaire had set up a watch manufactory in 1770. Though his exact role in the Ferney manufactory is not known, it is certain that he gave commissions to the workshops there until 1792. After his retirement in about 1793, although he had lost his sight, Lépine continued to be active in the firm managed by his son-in-law, and this until his death on 31 May 1814, at the age of 93.