Lot 396

Julien Le Roy à Paris, 47 mm, 88 g, circa 1760
An ornamental gold enamel verge pocket watch with weekday and date indicator, decorated with a pastoral scene and summer flowers finely painted on enamel, imitating Meissen porcelain
Case: 20k gold frame and enamel. Dial: enamel. Movm.: full plate movement, chain/fusee, three-arm brass balance.
The back of this delightful pocket watch is made of white enamel with an exquisitely colourful painting of a pastoral scene; the inside of the back lid is decorated with a flower arrangement of peonies and lilies; the inner and outer bezels with landscape motifs and flowers. The decor intended to imitate the Meissen porcelain, which was enormously popular at the time - with different motifs painted on a white background in the same style as the porcelain painting.

Julien Le Roy (1686 -1759) was one of the most outstanding clock- and watchmakers of his time and certainly played a decisive part in establishing the leading role French clockmaking had in the 18th century. He became a master in 1713, presented an equation clock to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1717, and was appointed clockmaker to the king in 1739 (with his own rooms at the Louvre). Le Roy invented the adjustable bracket for the verge escapement wheel ("potence"), the repetition strike on springs instead of bells for pocket watches, and the "all-or-nothing" piece for repeating watches. His inventions and improvements were of such extreme importance that most watchmakers adopted them promptly for their own pieces. Later Le Roy was director of the Société des Arts; he and his son supplied the entries on watches and clocks in the encyclopaedia compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert.