Swiss gold and enamel lever for the Chinese market Circa 1830

Gold and enamel centre seconds watch by Bovet Fleurier
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A very fine Swiss 14 carat gold and enamel open faced centre seconds lever pocket watch made for the Chinese market, circa 1830. Glazed, florally engraved bridge movement, key wind, a going barrel, lateral lever escapement and monometallic screw balance with screwed on blued weights. White enamel dial with Roman hours and outer minute track. The case back with a polychrome enamel medallion showing a beautiful flower arrangement with roses, tulips, violets and other spring flowers on a turquoise-coloured ground, the bezels on both sides as well as the pendant and the bow are decorated with flowers and leaf scrolls of translucent champlevé enamel on a light-blue ground. Movement signed, case numbered.
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Diameter: 58 mm
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Weight: 121 g
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Signed: Bovet Fleurier
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Amongst the European makers of pocket watches who produced watches for the Chinese market, Ilbery in London and Bovet and Vaucher in Fleurier were the most renowned companies. They had branches in China and exported the movements and the enamelwork for the timepieces from Switzerland to China.
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Edouard Bovet was born in 1797 in Fleurier, Switzerland as the son of a local master watchmaker, Jean-Frédéric Bovet. Edouard had four brothers, Frédéric, Alphonse, Gustave and Charles-Henri, and a sister, Caroline. In 1814, Edouard Bovet was against Neuchâtel’s return to Prussian rule after the fall of Napoleon. After his apprenticeship, he leaves Fleurier with Alphonse and Frédéric to work as a watchmaker in London. 1818 Edouard Bovet’s employer, the Magniac company, sends him to Canton, the only Chinese port open to Western trade. He leaves England on the East India merchantman, Orwell, on April 20, arriving in Canton via the Cape of Good Hope on August 16. Delighted, he wrote to his brother in Switzerland, enthusing about the market potential and asking him to send more watches, but only of the very best quality, since this was where the demand lay and there was no difficulty with payment. Since 1822 Bovet, now living in Canton, founds a partnership company for the China watch trade with his two brothers in London, Alphonse and Frédéric, and his third brother Gustave, watchmaker in Fleurier. The charter of the company is drawn up in London on May 1. Business booms and the company quickly transfers production to Fleurier.