Unique Swiss 18K gold watch with automaton movement Circa 1820

Gold watch so called The Dutch Kitchen
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Extremely fine and Unique Swiss, 18 carat gold and painted on enamel watch with an automaton scene with five actions, circa 1815. The automaton movement is attributed to Pierre Simon Gounouilhou, Geneva. A polished case with a glazed back, and concealed hinge. White enamel dial with Arabic numerals, outer minute track with painted gold divisions, regulation sector below 12 and Fancy pierced gold hands. A magnificent varicoloured gold automaton scene applied over a finely painted ground depicting a kitchen: a lady using a pestle and mortar sitting by a fire over which meat is being roasted, a boy peer through a window above her, to the right, a dog running in a rotating cage turns the spit, below a dog plays with a cat by a basket of vegetables.
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Gilt brass, full plate movement with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, cylinder escapement, plain brass three-arm balance with flat balance spring, regulation via the dial. Automatons are driven by independent movement with going barrel and five-wheel train, eccentrically mounted and adjustable pinion as the governor, driving the automata using cams and levers, activated by depressing the pendant. Numbered on the pendant.
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Diameter: 59 mm
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Signed: Robert & Courvoisier  Swiss
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Pierre Simon Gounouilhou (1779-1847) was born in 1779 and settled in Geneva in 1799. An imaginative maker of great repute, he produced automata and musical objects and 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 an abundance of information about the habits and customs of early 19th century Geneva watchmakers. “The Kitchen” a 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.
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The automaton mechanism controls:
1. The lady’s hand
2. The spit’s rotation
3. The fire’s flames
4. The dog’s running
5. The wheel turning