Swiss gold verge with knife grinder automaton Circa 1780-1815

Gold repeating automaton watch by Jaquet Droz
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A very fine, rare and massive Swiss 18 Carat gold open faced quarter repeating verge pocket watch à quatre couleurs with two automatons and two Jacquemarts, The Knife Grinder, circa 1780-1815. Finely pierced and engraved bridge cock with steel coqueret, plain three arm gilt balance with blue steel spiral hairspring, push pendant quarter repeating on two steel gongs, silver regulator dial with polished steel indicator. The dial with a white enamel chapter ring with Arabic hours and outer minute track surrounding the central scene and blue steel Breguet hands. A blue steel ground with a finely chased and engraved parcel gilt scene depicting two cupids on a brick bridge, as the watch strikes the hours and quarters the arms of the figures move as though striking the bells between them, in the arch of the bridge are two figures shown sharpening knives, when the repeat is operated, the figure on the left lowers the knife to the grinding wheel, which rotates, apparently belt driven by a large wheel turned by the boy on the right, when the watch has finished repeating the man lifts the knife from the wheel, ready for the next time. A fine engine turned case and a sprung signed gilt cuvette inset with a chased and engraved parcel gilt repoussé plate of Apollo playing his lyre.
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Diameter: 56 mm
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Weight: 140 g
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Signed: Jaquet-Droz
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Pierre Jaquet-Droz was born on July 28, 1721, on a small farm (La Ferme de Sur Le Pont) in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, as the son of a farmer who was an occasional clockmaker as well. He studied humanities and philosophy in Basel from 1738 to 1739. He became interested in clockmaking and precision mechanics under the tutelage of older relatives from the Brandt-dit-Grieurin, Sandoz and Robert families. On October 25, 1750, Jaquet-Droz married Marianne Sandoz, the daughter of Civil Lieutenant Abraham Louis Sandoz. Soon after the birth of his two children, Julie in 1751 and Henri-Louis in 1752, at the age of 34, Pierre lost his wife, followed by his daughter in 1755. He never remarried. In 1758, Pierre made the long and difficult journey to Spain, to present his works to King Ferdinand VI. When he returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1759, the sum of money he brought back from Spain enabled him to concentrate on making watches, clocks and automata. Jaquet-Droz worked together with his son and a neighbour’s son, Jean-Frédéric Leschot, whom he had taken in after the death of the boy’s mother and thought of as his adoptive son. From 1773 onwards, Jaquet-Droz and Leschot perfected and marketed increasingly sophisticated automata. Their work culminated with the three humanoid automata: The Writer, The Draughtsman and The Musician, presented in La Chaux- de-Fonds in 1774. Encouraged by this success, the Jaquet-Droz family took to the road to exhibit their products. From La Chaux- de-Fonds they travelled to Geneva, Paris, London, Holland, Flanders, Spain, Russia and beyond. Pierre decided to set up a workshop in London, under the management of his son, Henri-Louis. Exhausted by his travels, the latter delegated some of his responsibilities to Jean-Frédéric Leschot. Leschot was tasked in particular with overseeing the business relationship with the prominent trading company James Cox in London, whose agents in Canton opened up the Far Eastern market for the Jaquet-Droz Company and for many years represented it in China, India and Japan. They also set up a branch in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. For ten years, the company continued to expand. It sold clocks, automata, watches and singing birds all over the world, primarily in China. In 1784, Jaquet-Droz decided to move to Geneva, Jean-Frédéric Leschot soon joined him and they decided to open the city’s first clockmaking manufacture, simultaneously introducing the production of timepieces featuring complications. In 1788, the success and prosperity of Jaquet Droz & Leschot peaked, but only for a short time. In 1790, drafts made on their principal correspondent in China came back unpaid and their main client in London failed, putting the company in the red. These misfortunes darkened Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s final years. He left Geneva to live in Bienne, Switzerland, where he died in 1790. This in combination with the death of his son Henri-Louis in 1791 at the age of 39, the French Revolution in 1789 and the Napoleonic Wars meant the end of a period of great creativity and prosperity for Jaquet-Droz & Leschot. The Jaquet- Droz brand joined the Swatch Group in 2000. In 2010, the company moved its atelier to La Chaux-de-Fonds.