The Fishing PartyLouis Audemars

The Fishing PartyLouis Audemars, Brassus, No. 11463, enamel by F. Ser, circa 1885, made for the Chinese market.Very fine and extremely rare 18K gold and painted on enamel pearl-set hunting-cased keyless minute-repeating watch. Four-body, "bassine et filets", front cover finely painted on enamel with a country scene depicting a water mill, a stream with a bridge and a young lady crossing it on a donkey, with cows, goat and a dog, a tree to the left which follows the curvature of the case, the back painted with a young man fishing in a stream, while his love reclines on a rock, mountains in the background, half pearl-set bezels, band in champlevé blue enamel with repeating gold pattern, gold hinged cuvette over goldezel glazed for viewing the movement. White enamel, radial Arabic numerals, outer minute divisions with five-minute Arabic figures, subsidiary sunk seconds. Gold "Louis XV" hands. Notes It is very rare to find a watch by Louis Audemars for the Chinese market.Louis Benjamin AudemarsBorn in 1782 in La Vallée de Joux, he was apprenticed at 16 to Philippe Meylan. The fine workmanship of his watches established Audemars' reputation. Louis Audemars died in 1833 leaving 12 children. All eight of his sons continued in the Audemars firm, making finished movements, and around 1837 inventing the keyless winding/setting system today known as the Audemars system. They supplied movements with this kind of winding to companies such as Patek, Bautte and Jürgensen. Audemar