Swiss gold cylinder watch with decentralized dial Circa 1830-1840

Gold Lépine watch with digital hours by Bautte & Moynier
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A decorative, key-winding, Swiss gold Lépine pocket watch with decentralized dial and jumping hours, circa 1830-1840.
Round-shaped 18 carat yellow gold case. The case back and bezel are engraved and black champlevé enamelled with decoration en taille d’épargne of friezes and foliage. Silver guilloché dial with an aperture for the digital hours and subsidiary seconds at 6. Gilded brass movement with going barrel, cylinder escapement, monometallic balance probably in gold and blued steel flat hairspring. Cuvette signed.
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Diameter: 46 mm
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Signed: Bautte & Moynier
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Moulinié, Bautte & Moynier. After the Napoleonic wars, this small factory grew into a manufacturer that united all watchmaking crafts of the time under one roof. Watchmaker Jean-Gabriel Moynier joined the company on October 1, 1804. The company was now called “Moulinié, Bautte & Moynier” or “Moulinié, Bautte & Cie”. In those years, Bautte was the most important watch dealer in Geneva. The perfect craftsmanship, for which only the purest gold and enamel in wonderful colour nuances were used, impressed the customers immensely, such a quality was otherwise only found in Paris or London to find. As an outstanding businessman, Bautte traded with all European royal courts and thus became one of the most famous watchmakers of his time.
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Taille d’épargne is sometimes referred to as black enamel tracery. Taille d’épargne is a form of champlevé, an enamelling technique where opaque enamel is used to fill low-relief etchings in metal.