Important Swiss gold automaton cylinder watch Circa 1815

Gold automaton attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou
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An important Swiss gold and enamel pocket watch with seven automatons, The Dutch Kitchen, circa 1815. One of the most successful automata produced in Geneva in the early 19th century.
Gilt-brass full plate movement, cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, cylinder escapement, plain brass three-arm balance with flat balance spring, regulation lever in the dial plate. The automaton is driven by an independent movement with a going barrel and five-wheel train, eccentrically mounted and adjustable pinion as the governor, driving the automata using cams and levers.
White enamel dial with Arabic numerals, outer minute track, Arabic quarter hour numerals and blued steel ogival hands. Polished case with glazed back.
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The four-colour gold automaton scene shows a Dutch kitchen where the following sequences are performed:
1. On the left, a maidservant works at a spinning wheel;
2. the spinning wheel turns;
3. in the centre, a fire blazes in the hearth;
4. a couple of chickens turn on a spit;
5. on the right, a jumping dog in a wheel drives the spit;
6. the spit;
7. on the far right, water runs from a fountain.
In the foreground, a chased scene shows a cat with its kittens in a basket; to its right, another maidservant sits on the floor. The enamel background is decorated with a polychrome painting and displays the rest of the kitchen equipment.
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Diameter: 58 mm
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Signed: No name
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The Kitchen. This form of automaton watch appears to have been produced only by Gounouilhou and Dubois & Fils. Those made by Gounouilhou employ fusee and chain, rarely found in Swiss watches, whereas Dubois used a going barrel, and his kitchen was run from the repeating mechanism. Fewer than a dozen ‘Kitchen’ automata are known. Pierre Simon Gounouilhou (1779-1847) was born in 1779 and settled in Geneva, Quai Neuf en l’Isle, No. 241, in 1799. An imaginative maker of great repute, he produced automata, musical objects, watches, ring watches with virgule escapement and quarter-repeating, and watches with cases using unusual decorative techniques such as granulation. He left very interesting shop notes with much information about the habits and customs of early 19th-century Geneva watchmakers.