Swiss gold cylinder with enamelled map of Europe Circa 1820

Gold and enamel open faced watch
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An attractive Swiss gold enamel pocket watch with Champlevé enamelled map of southern Europe on reverse side, circa 1820.
An 18 carat gold and enamel case, silver, engine-turned dial, bridge movement, keywind, cylinder escapement, three-arm brass balance.
The back of the pocket watch shows a geopolitical map of Italy and its adjacent north-east European neighbours in black, azure and gold Champlevé enamel.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Weight: 66 g
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Signed:  Moricand & Degrange  Genèva
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An identical watch was sold at Antiquorum on May 22, 1995. Fourteen gold enamel watches with a map motif are known to have been created by Breguet; eight more are known from other makers. The Metropolitan Museums of Art owns another gold and enamel pocket watch with Champlevé ornamentation by Moricand & Degrange. Futher pocket watches are held in the Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum Collection in Malta and in the British Museum in London. Swiss jewellers and watch retailers Moricand & Degrange were based in Geneva and active from around 1828 to 1845. Moïse-Etienne Moricand, known as Stefano (1779-1854), was the owner of the company Moricand & Degrange and also a renowned natural scientist. He moved to Italy at a very young age to establish a watch retailing business. He visited primarily the regions of Tuscany, Naples and Venice, where he collected plants, butterflies, mussels and minerals and met with a number of Italian scientists. After his return to Geneva in 1814 Stefano became a member of the Société des Naturalistes and a partner in his father’s company at the Rue des Corps-Saints. He was co-founder of the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève but in everyday life he worked as a merchant for Moricand & Degrange. We have no information on the business partner Degrange. Stefano’s uncle Pierre François Moricand (1758-?) moved to Paris in 1797 and worked for “La manufacture d’horlogerie de Versailles” (1795-1801), also called “La fabrique d’horlogerie genevoise de Versailles”, until the company went into administration. Pierre François Moricand was married to the sister of famous miniature painter Jeanne-Marie Glaesner (1762-1823).