was a Bovet specialty. Bovet adapted its production to the Chinese tradition of making gifts of valuable objects (statues, vases, horses even concubines) in pairs. So he could often sell two identical watches at the same time: if one failed, a replacement was at hand. But Bovet’s enamel painters found it very difficult to paint two identical but mirror-image miniatures. Return to Fleurier Edouard Bovet returned to Fleurier in 1830 as a made man, accompanied by his four-year-old half-Chinese son Edouard-Georges. At that time it was customary for the European merchants in China to take a "temporary" wife for the duration of their stay. If children were born of this liaison, the father accepted responsibility. As a fervent republican, Bovet exposed himself in the abortive Neuchâtel revolution against Prussian rule in 1831. The house that his brothers had built for him in Fleurier according to his written instructions from China remained empty. Bovet had to move to Besançon where he continued watchmaking with the help of other exiled watchmakers. Legacy Edouard Bovet’s brothers and nephews — all of them company shareholders — made sure that the cornerstones of the Bovet empire in Fleurier, London and Canton continued to flourish. Once the political situation was back to normal, in 1840, the firm was reregistered as Bovet Frères et Cie.; the share capital amounted to one million francs. Edouard Bovet died in 1849; he lived long enough to witness the triumph of the republic and the withdrawal of the Prussians in the previous year. The succession was settled and the production for China continued; in 1855 Bovet was awarded a gold medal at the world exhibition in Paris for an absolutely identical pair of watches ordered by the Chinese emperor. Two generations later the Bovets were running a flourishing Swiss-Chinese commercial enterprise and were no longer interested in watchmaking. The name was sold several times and relaunched in 1994. The current Bovet watches are modeled on their luxury precursors from the 19th century and look like pocket watches for the wrist. References 1797 births 1849 deaths People from Val-de-Travers District Swiss watchmakers (people)