Swiss verge watch with simple processional automaton Circa 1800

Gold and enamel automaton by Bouvier Frères
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A Swiss gold and enamel verge watch with a simple processional automaton, circa 1800. This timepiece features a gilded full plate movement with verge escapement, a plain flat three-arm balance, a decoratively pierced and engraved balance bridge, a silver regulation plate, fusee and chain, cylindrical pillars, and is signed and numbered by Bouvier Frères no. 6061. It also includes a white enamel eccentric dial with Arabic numerals, an outer minute ring, and a wedge-form aperture for a rotating gold automaton depicting a maiden carrying baskets of fruit and flowers, followed by two hunters with dogs, all chased by a bear. The figures rotate against a polychrome enamel-painted landscape scene, and the dial is signed by Bouvier Frères.
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The timepiece is housed in a gold, plain polished case with chamfered bezels, and it bears the case maker’s mark P.C. beneath a crown incuse and is numbered 6061.
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Diameter: 52 mm
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Signed: Bouvier Frères
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The movement is running smoothly, and the automaton is advancing correctly. There is a faint hairline below the lower left of the automaton aperture and a discoloured scratch between 11 and 12 o’clock on the time dial. Overall, it is in good condition, with only a couple of small scratches on the polychrome enamel painted scene. The case shows some light denting and rippling on the case back.
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Bouvier Brothers, a company of watchmakers and watch dealers, is renowned for their high-quality automaton clocks, which were primarily produced for the English and French markets. The company was likely founded as a sole proprietorship by master clockmaker Charles-François Bouvier (1700–1800?). After his marriage, two sons were born, Jean Bouvier and Gaspard Bouvier.
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Jean Bouvier, born in Gex, Ain, France, in 1727, became a citizen of Geneva on March 6, 1756, and worked as a smith. In 1757, he married Jeanne Madeleine Le Double, who came from a family of goldsmiths in Paris. They had three children, including sons David Bouvier and Jean François Gaspard Bouvier, who may have become partners in the company. Jean François Gaspard Bouvier married Sara Benoit, the daughter of watchmaker Abraham Benoit (1738–1811) and the granddaughter of Jean-Etienne Benoit (1709–1781).
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Gaspard Bouvier, the brother of Jean Bouvier, was born in Gex in 1737 and became a citizen of Geneva on March 6, 1756. He worked as a watchmaker, and no marriage is known of him.
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The firm was still mentioned in the “Almanach du commerce de Paris, des départements de l’Empire” of 1809. It was in the 1780s that Geneva watchmakers, inspired by Henri Louis Jacquet Droz and Jean-Frédéric Leschot, specialised in automatons and musical clocks.