Swiss quarter repeating watch with two Jacquemarts Circa 1900

Gold hunting cased pocket watch by Mermod Frères
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A fine Swiss, keyless-winding, hunting cased pocket watch with quarter-repeater by two striking Jacquemarts (Jacks), circa 1900.
Round-shaped 14K pink gold hunting case. Gilt dial, central enamel dial with Arabic numerals, subsidiary seconds at six, and one horological complication: – Quarter-repeater on two steel gongs (activated by the slide at 6 o’clock) leading the two striking Jacks. Gilded brass movement with straight-line lever escapement, compensated balance with gold poising screws, and blued steel hairspring with a terminal curve. Signature on the case (trademark).
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Diameter: 55.3 mm
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Signed: Mermod Frères
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The Jacquemarts (Jacks) are in the habit of Incroyables (The Incredibles) and Merveilleuses (the Marvelous), men’s and women’s costumes, fashionable during the late 1790s and the Directoire period in France.
The Incroyables (The Incredibles) and the Merveilleuses (the Marvelous) After the Thermidor, the French began to rebel against the dress styles traditionally associated with the Revolution, including the sans-culottes, cockades, and tricolour accessories and clothes, and developed new techniques, more closely related to aristocratic fashions before the Revolution than to more contemporary styles. Perhaps the most salient and also most widely criticised expression of such manners was exhibited by Les “Incroyables” (The Incredibles) and their female counterparts, “les Merveilleuses” (the Marvelous). The typical outfit of these new dandies consisted of a double-breasted, square jacket, similar to a redingote with cut tails, a deformed vest with heavily stuffed pockets, white scarves around the neck, tight-fitting breeches with long ribbons dangling below the knees, open, pointed flat shoes. The Merveilleuses wore Neoclassical style dresses, with high waists and open necklines, narrow skirts, and often made up of light fabrics such as muslin, to assimilate the style of the mythical females of classical antiquity; their hair was usually done in a variety of styles, or covered with the different hats that were popular at the time, including bonnets, toques, turmans, and the popular Cornette. Incroyables and Merveilleuses were often criticised for their love of fashion, still associated with the ills of the pre-Revolutionary monarchy, and were the subjects of many caricatures that exposed them as worthless citizens and women with loose morals. Their style, however, has come to be associated with the fashions of the Directoire and the Empire, with Empress Josephine being one of the most popular Merveilleuses before her marriage to Napoléon.
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Mermod Frères, Sainte-Croix
The “M F / 1816” trademark with an “S” on a cross, all inside a shield, was registered in 1901. According to the sources, this society was created in 1856, 1840, and even 1816. The company name was recorded in 1881 as a maker of watches and music boxes in Sainte-Croix (Vaud); Sainte-Croix was the centre of the music box industry. The company won a Third Class medal for finished watches at the National Exhibition in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1881. They manufactured their entirely with improved machinery their music boxes. The company registered the trademark “Mira” for music boxes in 1902. The company is also listed for complicated watches, repeaters and chronometers. It still exists in 1925 for horology and “talking machines”. In 1926, the name of the company became “William Mermod”.