Swiss 18 Carat gold and enamelled Boule de Genève Circa 1890

Boule de Genève with original chain and box
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A museum quality gold and enamelled Boule de Genève with original chain and presentation box made by Golay Fils & Stahl in Genève, Switzerland for Constantin Detouche in Paris, circa 1890. The open faced case is made of 18 Carat gold and has a blue guilloché enamel overlay. The watch has a white enamel dial with one hand added and the movement features a lever escapement. It is extremely rare to find these wonderful enamel watches in such original condition with the original chain and original box. Dial and box are signed and the movement is numbered.
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Diameter: 17 mm
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Weight: 25 g
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Signed: Golay Fils & Stahl Genève
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Golay Fils & Stahl
In 1895, David Auguste Golay died in Geneva and his sons David Louis Golay and Joseph Pierre Golay took over the company. Louis became a jeweller and representative of the A. Golay-Leresche company in Paris at 2 Rue de la Paix. Pierre became a watchmaker and later managed the company in Geneva. The brothers partnered with Edouard Stahl in 1896. Between 1896 and 1906 the company was renamed Golay Fils & Stahl and later Golay Fils & Stahl Successors. In addition to the well-known companies Patek Philippe and Vacheron & Constantin, they also manufactured extremely fine Geneva pocket watches. Their extremely fine gold and enamel timepieces are highly traded today. Alongside Patek Philippe, Golay was one of the few Geneva-based manufacturers of these special watches to feature Geneva signatures.
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Constantin Louis Detouche was born in Paris on October 20, 1810. He was appointed court watchmaker and was a knight of the Legion of Honour.
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A Boule de Genève (Geneva ball) is a type of pendant watch in the shape of a small ball or sphere originating from Geneva, Switzerland. The dial is usually at the bottom of the sphere facing the floor, at the opposite side of the jump ring on the upper part of the sphere. Although there are examples with a front view face. Usually, they were Arabic numeral dials, sometimes Roman and from the 1950s different types of hour markers were also used. This ‘objet de vertu’ frequently came with a matching brooch, chain or chatelaine. 

The term Boule de Genève is generic, it doesn’t mean that a given watch was necessarily made in the city or Canton of Geneva. Geneva balls were crafted in different sizes, styles, materials and decorative techniques, such as gold, silver, other metals, guilloché enamel, enamel, cloisonné, adorned with diamonds, pearls etc. They were intended as an accessory mainly for women.

The first Boules de Genève date from the 1860s, marketed by firms such as Patek Philippe from 1866. They featured the winding mechanism invented by Marius Lecoultre (1847-1915) of Geneva and patented in Switzerland in 1889 (the Swiss patent office was not created until 1888). Winding by rotating the hemisphere containing the dial and time-setting by pressing the protruding, cylindrical-shaped button at one side of the orb while turning the hemisphere clockwise or counterclockwise. These watches have no key or crown. Lecoultre’s winding system was also used in some ring watches and wristwatches of the time.

In the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, Patek Philippe devoted a showcase to these ball form timepieces. Years later they sold pieces to royalty such as Sultan Hussein Kamel of Egypt in 1887 and Empress Teresa of Brazil in 1888.