Swiss 18 carat gold and enamel Art Nouveau pocket watch Circa 1900

Rare Art Nouveau watch with a picture the goddess Athena
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A rare Art Nouveau gold and enamel pocket watch with a painting depicting the goddess Athena, made by LeCoultre in Le Sentier, Switzerland, circa 1900. The numbered open faced case of this watch is crafted from 18 carat gold and enamel and has an enamelled portrait of the goddess Athena in a rare representation with a helmet in the form of a swan and the edge of the décolleté set with diamond roses (one of which is missing) on the back. The unusual lilac coloured enamel dial has blue Roman hour numerals and gold hands. The movement has a fine cylinder escapement with wolf’s teeth.
The movement is signed.
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Diameter: 35 mm
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Weight: 14 g
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Signed: LeCoultre&C^O
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LeCoultre
The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530 – 1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lisy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of inhabitant but left the following year to acquire a plot of land in the Vallée de Joux. Over time, a small community formed and in 1612, Pierre LeCoultre’s son built a church there, marking the founding of the village of Le Sentier where the company’s manufacturing is still based today. In 1833, following his invention of the machine to cut watch pinions from steel, Antoine LeCoultre (1803-1881) founded a small watchmaking workshop in Le Sentier where he honed his horological skills to create high-quality timepieces. In 1844, he invented the world’s most precise measuring instrument at the time, the millionomètre, and in 1847 he created a keyless system to rewind and set watches. Four years later, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London. In 1866, at a time when watchmaking skills were divided up among hundreds of small workshops, Antoine and his son, Elie LeCoultre (1842-1917), established the Vallée de Joux’s first fully fledged manufacture, LeCoultre & Cie, bundling their employees’ expertise under one roof. Under this setup, they developed the first partially mechanized production processes for complicated movements in 1870. By the same year, the manufacturer employed 500 people and was known as the Grande Maison of the Vallée de Joux. By 1900, it had created over 350 different calibers of which 128 were equipped with chronograph functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms. From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre & Cie produced most of the movement blanks for Patek, Philippe of Geneva.