Swiss gold repeater made for the Chinese market Circa 1820

Gold portrait watch with centre seconds
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An extremely fine Swiss, 18 carat gold, enamel and pearl set pocket watch, circa 1820. With centre seconds and quarter repeating, the enamel by Jean Abraham Lissignol (1749-1819). The case by Frères Oltramare, made for the Chinese Market. An Empire case, the back featuring a finely painted enamel portrait of a young lady in a red dress, pink scarf, blue headdress, and a split pearl set border. The outer border is decorated with translucent guilloche red enamel, the band and pendant and bow are decorated to match. The bezels set with split pearls, hinged gold cuvette decorated with light blue and dark blue champlevé enamel foliage, apertures for hand setting and winding going train.
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White enamel dial with radial Roman numerals, outer minute divisions and Arabic quarter hour numerals and blued steel serpent hands. Frosted gilt, full plate movement, profusely chased and engraved with flowers and foliage in the Chinese taste, going barrel, cylinder escapement, three arm gold balance with polished steel endplate, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by depressing the pendant. Case punched with the casemaker’s mark “FO”, movement punched with Piguet & Meylan’s mark “PM” on the dial plate.
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Diameter: 56 mm
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Signed: Piguet & Meylan  Geneva
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Piguet & Meylan; Both originally from the village of Le Chenit in the Vallée de Joux, Isaac Daniel Piguet (1775-1841) and Philippe Samuel Meylan (1772-1845) came to Geneva as young men and formed a partnership which lasted from 1811 to 1828. The company specialised in elaborate and beautifully decorated musical watches, including skeleton and automaton watches, and mechanical animals. The firm was established at 45, rue Jean Jacques Rousseau in Geneva.
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After their association came to an end, both Piguet and Meylan continued for some time to work with their sons. A watch from this series, Winter, is in the Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva. One of the best enamel painters of the later part of the eighteenth century, he was the pupil of Jean Marc Roux and later became his partner. He specialised in decorating enamelled snuffboxes and watch cases, working for Jaquet Droz, Leschot, the Rochat brothers, and John Rich. Frères Oltramare worked in Geneva between 1810/11 and 1826.