Description: Gilt brass, front wound, verge fusee movement (35.4mm diameter). Silver regulator dial and steel regulator hand, medium sized two-footed cock with steel cockerel. Featuring round pillars. Backplate signed ‘Berthoud A Paris’. Enamelled copper dial with silver buttons inlaid with small diamonds (except for two) between the hours, signed ‘Berthoud A PARIS’. Counter enamel numbered ‘2078’.
Additional Info:
One of the very few surviving simple watches attributable to Ferdinand Berthoud’s workshop. The quality of the manufacture is excellent and even surpasses the quality of almost identical contemporary pieces by Jean – Antoine Lépine. Would it not be for the number on the counter enamel of the dial, it could have been identified as a contemporary forgery, as the signature is neither ‘Fd. Berthoud’ nor ‘Ferdinand Berthoud’. But the quality and the numbering together provide enough proof for a positive attribution. The workshop was run by Henry Berthoud at the time this movement has been made. Many external workshops provided pieces and manpower for the production of these pieces, but for sure Ferdinand Berthoud didn’t work personally on these ‘simple’ watches any longer at that time.
The ledger of Berthoud’s workshop is kept at the ‘Conservatoire national des arts et des métiers’ in Paris.
Antiquarian Horology 
