Swiss watch with centre seconds for Chinese market Circa 1895

Silver open faced pocket watch by Edouard Bovet
–
A rare and exquisite Swiss silver enamel pocket watch featuring a centre second hand, made for the Chinese market, circa 1895. The watch features an enamel dial with Roman radial hours, an outer minutes/seconds track with Arabic fifteen minutes/seconds numerals, and gold spade hands. It also includes a florally engraved gilt key wind bridge movement with a going barrel, Chinese duplex escapement, and a three-arm brass balance. The silver polychrome enamel case bears the case maker’s punch mark B&Co. Additionally, the watch is adorned with a meander pattern and opaque light blue enamel on the edge. On the reverse side, there is a polychrome miniature portrait of a young lady with a plumed hat on an engine-turned and translucent green enamelled ground, framed by a champlevé enamel border of colourful scattered flowers.
–
Diameter: 34 mm
–
Weight: 32 g
–
Signed: Bovet
–
Edouard Bovet, born in Fleurier, Switzerland in 1797, was the son of the local master watchmaker Jean-Frédéric Bovet. He had four brothers – Frédéric, Alphonse, Gustave, and Charles-Henri – and one sister, Caroline. After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, Bovet opposed the return of Neuchatel to Prussian rule. Following his apprenticeship with the brothers Alphonse and Frédéric, he left Fleurier to work as a watchmaker in London, which was the centre of European watchmaking and trade at the time. In 1818, his employer, the Magniac company, sent him to Canton, the only Chinese port where foreigners were allowed to trade. Enthusiastic about the sales potential in Canton, Bovet wrote to his brother in Switzerland asking for more high-quality watches, as there was a demand for such watches and the price was paid without objection. In 1822, Bovet, already living in Canton, founded a company to trade watches with China in partnership with his brothers Alphonse and Frédéric in London, and brother Gustave, who worked as a watchmaker in Fleurier. The company’s charter was issued in London on May 1, and business quickly flourished, leading to production being moved to Fleurier.