Goullons à Paris

Goullons à Paris, circa 1660. Very fine and rare silver hour striking three-train coach watch with alarm. 70 mm o, gilt brass full plate with round baluster pillars, fusee with chain, four-wheel train, verge escapement, pain brass three-arm balance with short early balance spring, gilt brass cock pierced and engraved with flowers and foliage. Striking train with fixed gilt brass barrel pierced and engraved with flowers, gilt count wheel on the back plate. Alarm train with gilt brass fixed barrel and steel four-wheel train striking on a bell fixed to the bottom of the case.Signed on the back plate.Diam. 97 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, page 80-81. Notes This watch was modified and improved soon after the invention of the balance spring by Christian Huygens in 1675. The regulator, silver dial with hour and minute indications, and the two hands, were changed in the first part of the eighteenth century.In 1663, Goullons à Paris made a large clock watch with outer case for 200 Livres for the study of Cardinal Mazarin. A magnificent enamelled watch, also signed by Goullons, painted inside the cover and the back with the portraits of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, is in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.