Swiss gold and enamel decorative verge pocket watch Circa 1790

Gold and enamel open faced pocket watch by Amalric Père & Fils
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A decorative Swiss gold and enamel open faced key wound verge pocket watch, circa 1790. Signed gilded brass full plate movement, fusee and chain, verge escapement, gilded brass monometallic balance, blued steel flat hairspring, pierced and engraved gilded continental cock.
Round shaped case, the back with a painted on enamel scene showing a young, loving couple on a royal blue flinqué enamel ground attributable to Jean-Louis Richter. Signed white enamel dial with radial Arabic hours, an outer minute track with Arabic fifteen minute numerals and gold skeletonized hands.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Signed: Amalric Père & Fils
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The Amalric family of Geneva watchmakers was active between 1760 and 1795, first associated with the Frères Wiss in circa 1770.
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Jean-Louis Richter (1766-1841) was a painter active in Geneva’s ‘Fabrique’ from the 1780s to the 1830s. His work often unsigned, is clearly recognizable. He was the son of Jean Jost Richter who died in 1792, an engraver and ‘bourgeois’ of Frankfort on the Main, who became an inhabitant of Geneva on February 7, 1766. In 1778, at the age of 12, Richter began a six year apprenticeship with the Roux brothers, who specialized in the decoration of watches and jewellery. In January 1793, ‘Rifter’ (sic) is listed among the citizens of Geneva who are to elect the new National Assembly, he is described as a painter. In 1820, Richter was elected to the Conseil of the city of Geneva and in 1830, he was elected again. In addition to his painting on enamel, Richter also practised another genre, imported from Berlin and Brunswick: a painting on objects made of cardboard and of sheet iron. In 1826, Richter is recorded in the Almanach des adresses du canton de Genève as working “en l’Isle, No. 243”. Around 1815 he became associated with Aimé-Julien Troll (1781-1852). In 1828 they are listed as executing paintings “on enamel and in oils, landscapes, portraits, flowers, and all types of jewellery, Quai de l’Isle, 243”. The association between Troll and Richter had been dissolved by 1840. Jean-Louis Richter died in Geneva on July 21, 1841, at the age of nearly 75. Dr Hans Boeckh has shown that the work of Richter may be divided into three periods: in the earliest of them, the English influence is predominant, with subjects coming from the engravings of artists such as William Hamilton (1751-1801) and Peltro William Tomkins (1760-1840), although the influence of other artists can be perceived as well, contemporaries such as Johann Ludwig Aberli (1723-1786), Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815), Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) or painters from earlier times such as Guido Reni (1575-1642) and Eustache Lesueur (1616-1655). Richter’s second period was dominated by Italian landscapes, real or imaginary, in the style of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789). In his third period, Richter favoured Swiss landscapes, often after the work of Pierre-Louis De la Rive.
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Flinqué enamel is translucent enamel over guilloché engine turned.