Minute-repeat” Recordon

“Minute-repeat” Recordon, Late Emery, London, No. 7480. Case by Louis Comptesse with London hallmarks for 1805-6. Very fine and extremely rare, minute-repeating, 18K yellow gold “fermée-type” pocket watch. Three-body, “baguette”, engine-turned covers with concentric circle decoration, engine turned band. Gold, engine-turned, gold Arabic chapters, outer minute divisions, eccentric winding hole. Blued steel “Breguet” hands. 50 mm, frosted gilt, full-plate, fusee with chain, hanging barrel, cylinder escapement, escape wheel jeweled in screwed chaton, under-sprung three-arm brass balance, blued steel flat balance-spring, chased single footed balance cock, repeating on two opposed rectangular section steel gongs by depressing the pendant. Movement signed. Diam. 55 mm. Notes Louis Recordon (1756-1826) A watchmaker originally from Sainte Croix who settled first in Geneva and then in London, he was Breguet's friend and agent in England, and was responsible for selling approximately 75 of Breguet's watches to the British, including some to the British Monarchy. He was also one of the first to develop the self-winding watch, and in 1780 was granted "Letters Patent" by King Georges III, concerning an automatic winding mechanism. “Dictionnaire des horlogers genevois”, Osvaldo Patrizzi, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1998. Louis Comptesse Was one of the finest casemakers working in England during the early 19th century. He is recorded at 13 Bateman’s Buildings, Soho, from November