French 18K gold open faced verge pocket watch Circa 1750

Gold and enamel Louis XV watch by Julien Le Roy
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A fine French 18K gold and enamel open faced verge pocket watch, circa 1750. A Louis XV case, a painted enamel courting scene in the countryside on the back, the interior with a painted country house, the band is decorated with a continuous polychrome enamel landscape, the inside of the band with flowers.

White enamel dial, radial Roman hours, outer minute track with five-minute Arabic numerals, winding aperture at 4 o’clock and diamond-set hands. A hinged gilt-brass full plate movement with pentagonal baluster pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, micrometric potence adjustment, plain steel three-arm balance, flat balance spring, continental cock, silver regulation disc. Movement signed.
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Diameter: 46 mm
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Signed: Julien Le Roy Paris
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Julien Le Roy (1686-1759) is one of the clockmakers who contributed most to the progress and the reputation of French watch- and clockmaking. Born in Tours on August 6, 1686. He came to Paris in 1699 and was received master in 1713. First member, then Director of the Société des Arts, he improved almost all branches of clockmaking, and many important inventions in the realm of time measurement are owed to him. In 1717, Julien Le Roy presented an equation clock to the Royal Academy of Sciences which showed the true time, the place of the sun and its decline. Appointed Clockmaker to the King in 1739, he had his private quarters in the Louvre. His most important discoveries concerned watch mechanisms. The adjustable ‘potence’ for the verge escape wheel considerably improved the escapement’s functioning, and the steel end-piece (coqueret) which allowed oil to be retained in the balance pivots in order to diminish frictional force, was quickly adopted by other watchmakers. He was the inventor of dumb repeating watches too, in 1740, he created a new arrangement that allowed the area allotted to the repeating work to be enlarged. This invention, called ‘à bâte levée’, was also adopted by his fellow clockmakers. In 1755 he invented a small anchor escapement used as a regulator for the repeating train. He contributed to the Encyclopédie by writing several articles on clockmaking together with his son Jean-Baptiste, the Academician.