Swiss silver quarter repeating musical pocket watch Circa 1800

Silver repeating musical cylinder watch by Isaac-Daniel Piguet
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A Swiss silver open faced quarter repeating musical cylinder pocket watch, circa 1800.
Polished case, the guilloché back engraved in taille-douce with a central escutcheon, a fluted band with a lever for music/silence. Round-shaped glass dial with steel hands. The gilded brass engraved movement with two going barrels, a cylinder escapement, the monometallic balance probably gold and a blued steel flat hairspring, repeating the quarter hours on a blued steel gong activated by depressing the pendant, a sur plateau musical movement with eight tuned blued or polished steel vibrating blades acting on one side of the pinned disc. The movement casing ring is signed. Accompanied by the book La montre Suisse by Jaquet & Chapuis (1945).
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Diameter: 59 mm
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Signed: Isaac-Daniel Piguet
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Henry-Daniel Capt was born in 1773 and died in 1841. Isaac-Daniel Piguet was born in 1775 and died in 1841. The company Piguet & Capt was active between 1802 and 1811. They specialized in the production of complicated watches. Musical and/or automaton scenes were incorporated into watches, snuff boxes or objects. Piguet & Capt were among the first in Geneva to use the musical mechanism with pinned cylinder and tuned teeth comb. From March 7th, 1802, until 1811 Henry-Daniel Capt formed a partnership with Isaac-Daniel Piguet, who was from the same village as he, Le Chenit, Vallée de Joux. They signed their products with ‘Piguet & Capt’. In 1811, Piguet broke off their partnership to join Philippe-Samuel Meylan (1772-1845), and Henry-Daniel Capt continued to work on his own. Following this separation, Capt restarts a numbering of his movements in the 300. In 1830, he went into partnership with Aubert & Son, Place Bel-Air. Their signature was ‘Aubert & Capt’. They were among the first Genevan makers to produce watches with chronographs. In 1844, the workshop was at 108 Rue Neuve in Geneva. Capt’s son then managed it, Henry Capt Jr. After a short time, it moved to 85 Rue de la Fusterie and, in 1851, to 177 Rue du Rhône. The firm was bought by Gallopin in 1880 and its name became ‘H. Capt Horloger Maison Gallopin Successeurs’, a trademark registered on November 1st, 1880, under the No. 44. This signature was only used for watches retailed in their own store. The watches supplied to other retailers were merely signed ‘Henry Capt’. Henry-Daniel Capt, Isaac-Daniel Piguet and Philippe-Samuel Meylan were the foremost makers of small musical automata in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of his work is not signed, although he sometimes scratched his name on his movements.