Swiss gold, enamel and pearl set open faced watch Circa 1900

Pink gold, enamel and pearl set ladies’ watch
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A Swiss pink gold, enamel and pearl set open faced keyless ladies’ watch, circa 1900. Movement with a cylinder escapement.
White enamel dial with Roman hour numerals, outer gold minute dots, outermost Arabic five minute numerals and Louis XIV hands. Both bezels are set with split pearls, a polychrome enamel scene on the case back depicting a couple courting in a landscape.
Movement signed, case numbered.
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Diameter: 28 mm
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Signed: LeCoultre & Co
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LeCoultre & Cie. The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530-1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lisy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of inhabitant but left the following year to acquire a plot of land in the Vallée de Joux. Over time, a small community formed and in 1612, Pierre LeCoultre’s son built a church there, marking the founding of the village of Le Sentier where the company’s manufacturing is still based today.

In 1833, following his invention of the machine to cut watch pinions from steel, Antoine LeCoultre (1803-1881) founded a small watchmaking workshop in Le Sentier where he honed his horological skills to create high-quality timepieces. In 1844, he invented the world’s most precise measuring instrument at the time, the millionomètre, and in 1847 he created a keyless system to rewind and set watches. Four years later, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London.

In 1866, at a time when watchmaking skills were divided up among hundreds of small workshops, Antoine and his son, Elie LeCoultre (1842-1917), established the Vallée de Joux’s first full-fledged manufacture, LeCoultre & Cie, bundling their employees’ expertise under one roof. Under this setup, they developed the first partially mechanized production processes for complicated movements in 1870. By the same year, the manufacturer employed 500 people and was known as the Grande Maison of the Vallée de Joux. By 1900, it had created over 350 different calibres of which 128 were equipped with chronograph functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms. From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre & Cie produced most of the movement blanks for Patek Philippe of Geneva.