Swiss gilt brass ball shaped brooch pendant watch Circa 1900

Gilt brass and diamond brooch watch 
–
A fine Swiss gilt brass, blue enamel ball form pendant watch with bezel winding and a diamond set slide, circa 1900. Small white enamel dial with blue Arabic hours, red 12, bleud steel hands. The Giulloché case is overlaid with translucent blue enamel and applied diamant decoration. Accompanied by a blue enamel set with diamonds brooch.
–
Diameter: 18.5 mm
–
Signed: No Name
–
A Boule de Genève (Geneva ball) is a type of pendant watch in the shape of a small ball or sphere originating from Geneva, Switzerland. The dial is usually at the bottom of the sphere facing the floor, at the opposite side of the jump ring on the upper part of the sphere. Although there are examples with a front view face. Usually, they were Arabic numeral dials, sometimes Roman and from the 1950s different types of hour markers were also used. This ‘objet de vertu’ frequently came with a matching brooch, chain or chatelaine. The term Boule de Genève is generic, it doesn’t mean that a given watch was necessarily made in the city or Canton of Geneva. Geneva balls were crafted in different sizes, styles, materials and decorative techniques, such as gold, silver, other metals, guilloché enamel, enamel, cloisonné, adorned with diamonds, pearls etc. They were intended as an accessory mainly for women.
–
The first Boules de Genève date from the 1860s, marketed by firms such as Patek Philippe from 1866. They featured the winding mechanism invented by Marius Lecoultre (1847-1915) of Geneva and patented in Switzerland in 1889 (the Swiss patent office was not created until 1888). Winding by rotating the hemisphere containing the dial and time-setting by pressing the protruding, cylindrical-shaped button at one side of the orb while turning the hemisphere clockwise or counterclockwise. These watches have no key or crown. Lecoultre’s winding system was also used in some ring watches and wristwatches of the time. In the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, Patek Philippe devoted a showcase to these ball-form timepieces. Years later they sold pieces to royalty such as Sultan Hussein Kamel of Egypt in 1887 and Empress Teresa of Brazil in 1888.