Swiss rare quarter repeater with music movement Circa 1800

Gold repeating musical watch by Henri Maillardet
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An exquisite and rare Swiss 18 carat gold open faced quarter repeating musical pocket watch made for the Ottoman Empire, circa 1800.
Engine-turned case with case maker’s punch GR. Very fine white enamel dial with Ottoman numerals, a polychrome enamel flower bouquet in the centre and blued steel hands. Geneva movement with cylinder escapement, repeating the hours and quarter hours, a blued gong and musical movement. Dome signed.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Weight: 124 g.

Signed: Maillardet et Comp.
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Jean Henri Nicolas Maillardet was born in 1745 in Meyriez. He was one of the most important manufacturers of watches with automatons and musical movements. Maillardet worked in Fontaines, in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland and in London (from 1784 to about 1815). Around 1768 he worked, together with his brother Jean-David, with Abraham Louis Huguenin in Berlin. Later he began working for Jaquet-Droz and together with his colleagues Jean-Frédéric Leschott and Jacob Frisard he began building three androids in 1770. In 1774, the Jaquet-Droz company in La Chaux-de-Fond introduced these three androids, the scribe, the draftsman and the musician, to the public. These watches now are at the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel. Jaquet-Droz, who worked in London from 1775, met several watchmakers there, including the famous James Cox, whose son operated in the Chinese canton. Maillardet became the director of the London branch of Jaquet-Droz which was opened in 1783. Most of the production was destined for the Chinese market. Maillardet received the movements and the cases for his watches mainly from Geneva.