Swiss gold presentation watch with six complications Circa 1890

Gold, enamel and diamond repeater
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An extremely fine Swiss 18K rose gold, champlevé enamel and diamond-set six complications pocket watch, circa 1890. Royal Italy presentation of King Umberto I, retailed by Victor Fleury. Minute repeating keyless open faced with perpetual calendar, moon phases and lunar calendar. The back cover with the champlevé enamelled diamond-set coat of arms of Umberto I, King of Italy. Hinged gold cuvette engraved with the technical details.
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White enamel dial with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track with Arabic five-minute numerals, subsidiary dials for the seconds, date, days of the week and months with leap-year cycle, aperture for the moon phases with a lunar calendar on the edge and gold spade hands. A matte gilt brass movement, 25 jewels, counterpoised straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, and an index regulator, repeating on gongs with two polished steel hammers, activated by a slide in the band. Cuvette signed by the retailer.
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Diameter: 53 mm
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Signed: Louis Audemars  Brassus & Genève
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The present watch would appear to be the most complicated of those made by Louis Audemars for King Umberto I to be offered at auction. These watches were commissioned by the King in order to be presented to important visitors or in recognition of loyalty. Other watches by Louis Audemars for King Umberto were sold by Antiquorum in Geneva on April 2, 2006, lot 486 and March 20, 2010. Vacheron & Constantin and Patek Philippe also made such watches for King Umberto.
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King Umberto I (1844-1900) Was born on March 14, 1844, in Turin (Piedmont), Kingdom of Sardinia, Duke of Savoy and King of Italy. His marriage to his cousin Margherita Teresa Giovanna, Princess of Savoy, on April 22, 1868, and the birth of their son, the future Vittorio Emanuele III, on November 11, 1869, also gained him public sympathy in spite of prevailing antimonarchist sentiment. Umberto, I led his country out of its isolation and into the Triple Alliance with Austria and Germany. He supported nationalistic and imperialistic policies that led to disaster for Italy and helped create the atmosphere in which he was assassinated in Monza by an anarchist on July 29, 1900.