DIAM. 60 mm. HENRY-DANIEL CAPT Born in Chenit in 1773, he married Henriette Piguet. He specialized in the production of complicated watches, musical watches and automaton watches. Among the first in Geneva to use the musical mechanism with pinned cylinder and tuned teeth comb, he was famous for his snuffboxes with music and automaton scenes. From Ventôse 16, An X (March 7, 1802), to 1811, he formed a partnership with Daniel Isaac Piguet, who was from the same village as he. Their signature was Piguet & Capt. In 1811, when Piguet broke off to join Meylan in a new partnership, Henry-Daniel Capt continued to work on his own until, in 1830, he went into partnership with Aubert and son, Place Bel-Air. Their signature was Aubert & Capt. They were among the first Genevan makers to produce watches with chronograph. In 1844 the workshop was at 108, rue Neuve in Geneva. It was then managed by Capt's son, Henry Capt Jr. After a short time it moved to 85, rue de la Fusterie, and in 1851, to 177, rue du Rhône. In 1880, the firm was bought by Gallopin and its name became H. Capt Horloger, Maison Gallopin Successeurs, a trademark registered on November 1, 1880, under the No. 44. This signature was only used for watches retailed in their own store, the watches supplied to other retailers being merely signed Henry Capt. Henri Capt, along with Isaac Piguet and Philippe Meylan, was the foremost maker of small musical automata in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of his work is not signed, although he sometimes scratched his name on his movements This watch is the work of the exceptional Genevan watchmaker Henry Capt and is one of the few known watches by him to be fully signed (on the movement ring). This watch exhibits several unusual technical features; the musical movement is enclosed between the plates and is neither sur-plateau or stacked but has a pinned barrel acting on individually placed steel teeth screwed to each interior side of the plates. The repeating mechanism is also highly unusual whereby it is activated by fully turning the crown clockwise which pulls a chain attached to the arbour and engages the repeating. The present watch is also unusual in having a plain dial for the watch rather than a further decorated or automaton dial. The case which is punched with the same number as the movement is very substantially made with a fine enamel panel depicting Cupid indicating silence or hinting at the secret within.