COURTENER "LA FORGE DE CUPIDON"
AUTOMATON WATCH YELLOW GOLD
Courtener à Strasbourg, Swiss. Made circa 1810.
Very fine and rare, quarter-repeating, 18K gold and painted on enamel
automaton pocket watch with jacks and separately activated automaton
scene with five actions.
Three-body, "Empire", engine-turned, flat band, rope-twist pendant.
Small eccentric, white enamel with Breguet numerals, flanked by fine
varicolored gold jacks of Ceres standing on a pillar and a putto holding
a flaming torch appearing to strike bells when the repeating is activated.
Blued steel Breguet hands. The painted on enamel dial plate painted with
a country landscape and applied with a fine varicolored gold automaton
scene depicting three cherubs busily working at a forge: one is forging
arrows for Venus while another sharpens the arrow and the third tends to
the fire, activated by a slide concealed beneath the bezel.
41 mm. gilt brass, full plate, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm
balance, flat balance-spring with regulator on a silvered plate, continental
cock, repeating on gongs activated by depressing the pendant. The
automaton train with two speed regulators on the backplate.
Movement signed.