Rare French gold half quarter repeating watch Circa 1810

Gold repeating lever watch by Breguet
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A fine, rare and large French 18 carat gold open faced half quarter repeating key-wound lever pocket watch with a special striking train, circa 1810. The watch features a gilded brass Lépine movement with skeletonized and partly engraved bridges, a free-standing going barrel, and a Robin detent lever escapement with a roller engaging the fork of the lever with a gilt brass wheel. It also has a gilt brass monometallic balance with three arms and a blued steel flat hairspring, an index regulator with temperature compensating bimetallic curb, and it repeats the hours à toc with one large hammer and the half-quarter hours with a second small hammer on a steel gong activated by depressing the pendant.

The gold guilloché dial has radial Roman numerals on a plain reserve, outer dot minute markers, eccentric subsidiary seconds dial at 4 o’clock, and blued steel Breguet hands with a skeletonized tip. The three-piece round-shaped Empire case has blue champlevé enamel decoration showing two classical profile busts, allegories of the Sun and the Moon, a winged hourglass between, a gold star and crescent moon border, and a fluted case band.

Both the dial and cuvette are signed by the watchmaker, Lallemand.
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Diameter: 58 mm
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Signed: Breguet
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Abraham-Louis Breguet was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1747 and died in 1823 at the age of 77. At age 15, he left for Paris where he studied various disciplines, mathematics, astrology, horology, etc. He began his watchmaking career by marrying a wealthy heiress and establishing his first watch factory in Paris. He hired the most skilled and renowned horologers and master watchmakers. They realized his brilliant and innovative ideas. In 1786, he moved to London and set up a workshop where high-quality pocket watches and chronometers were manufactured. In 1789, he returned to Paris, where he remained until 1793 when he fled for political reasons. With the arrival of Louis XVIII, he became in charge of the ‘Centre Horloger de Versailles’ and was appointed ‘Horloger de la Marine’, he further entered the Academy of Sciences, and the King personally imposed on him the ‘Legion of Honour’. His innovations and improvements shocked the already existing watchmaking industry. 
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Montre à toc. A ‘dumb’ repeater watch in which a hammer strikes the inside of the case to produce a muffled sound. Invented by Julian Le Roy in 1740.
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The movement maker Lallemand is recorded as a student of Breguet and a watchmaker in his workshop. It is thought that Breguet purchased completed movements from fellow watchmakers and it is possible that he retailed this watch. The watch features a Robin-type escapement named after its inventor, Robert Robin (1742-1809). As described in ‘Watches by Clutton & Daniels’, the escapement only uses a lever for locking and impulse is given directly by the escape wheel to the balance. Impulse can, therefore, only be given on alternate balance swings.