Rare French rose gold and enamel verge pocket watch Circa 1750

Gold open faced verge pocket watch by Julien Le Roy
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A very fine and rare French gold and enamel key wind pocket watch, circa 1700-1750. This antique pocket watch features a full plate copper movement with a verge escapement. The white enamel dial has radial Roman hours, an outer minutes track with Arabic five-minute numerals and steel hands. The watch is housed in a gold case with an enamel rim, and the back is adorned with polychrome enamel. The watch was made by Julien Le Roy, a French watchmaker from Tours, who lived from 1686 to 1759 and is signed on the movement.
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Diameter: 48 mm
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Signed: Leroy à Paris
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Julien Le Roy 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, and died in 1759 in Paris. He came to Paris in 1699. In 1713, he achieved his master’s degree, and in the following years, he became a jury member of the Paris Guild of Watchmakers. Later, Le Roy became director of the Société des Arts de Genève and, in 1739, Court Watchmaker (French Horloger Ordinaire du Roi) under Louis XV; he had his private quarters in the Louvre. 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—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 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 enlarged the area allotted to the repeating work. 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. Le Roy ran his workshop in the Rue de Harlay in Paris until his death. Examples of his timepieces can be found in various important museums worldwide, such as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum.