French verge watch with Jacquemart figure automaton Circa 1810

Silver quarter repeating watch by Meugnier (Mugnier)
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An exceptional French silver quarter repeating pocket watch with Jacquemart automaton figures, circa 1807-1812, bearing the inscription NAPOLEON au GENERAL COMTE de MONTHOLON – Ste HELENE 14 AOUT 1816. This unusual watch features a Rooster movement signed Meugnier Horloger de l’Empereur & Roi, which repeats sounds with two hammers striking a gong via a pusher on the bezel, and strikes the hours and quarters on demand. The front displays a pair of natives and a lion, finely chiselled on either side of the dial, dressed in loincloths and crowned with feathers. Each holds a bow and arrow in one hand and a hammer in the other, striking two bells when it rings. In the centre, there is a guilloché dial with Roman numerals and blued hands.
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The back of the case is also guilloché, intricately chiselled with scrolls around the edge, and at its centre, an eagle with spread wings holding a branch of foliage in its beak. The ball bears two hallmarks: the clockmaker’s hallmark, applied when the watch was made between 1807 and 1812, and the crab hallmark for 800 silver, introduced on 10 May 1838, which was affixed at the sale of Count Montholon’s estate at a public auction.
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Diameter: 55 mm.
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Weight: 108,3 g
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Height: 68 mm.
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Thickness: 20 mm.
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Signed: Meugnier Horloger de l’Empereur & Roi
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Wear and patina of time, small repair to the arm of one of the ringers, the key missing, revised and functional, good condition.
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MEUGNIER (or Mugnier), watchmaker to the Emperor and King, established on rue Neuve des Petits Champs in Paris. He apprenticed under Linder Abraham Louis Breguet alongside his master and Charles Oudin (another pupil of Breguet). He was the only manufacturer capable of producing such a complex watch. In the inventory of the Emperor’s household accounts in the national archives, we find “Mugnier horloger”, with payments for the supply of watches and various works in 1807, 1809, and 1812.
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Provenance: kept within the family that acquired it at the auction of Count Montholon’s estate until 2010, when it was purchased directly from one of the descendants by a very enlightened amateur, who has preserved it to this day.
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MONTHOLON Charles Tristan, Count of (1783-1853): General, Chamberlain, and Minister Plenipotentiary of Napoleon I, whom he followed to Saint Helena and whose eyes he closed. Executor of Napoleon Bonaparte’s will, the Baron and later Count of Montholon was the most rewarded among all the companions of the deposed Emperor, whose “Memoirs” he would later publish. Involved in the plot of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and condemned to 20 years of detention, he was released following the escape of the latter from the fort of Ham. He served as a deputy of Charente-Inférieure at the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies (1848-1849). He was reinstated as Brigadier General (1852) and became Count of the Empire (1853).