If age and inventiveness weren’t enough to qualify Jaquet Droz as one of the most venerable watch brands today, another accomplishment by the house played a role –though a non-technical one – in accelerating the spread of fine clocks and watches around the world. Pierre Jaquet-Droz was one of the very first Europeans to concentrate on export, ensuring that his creations reached the courts of Asia, especially India, China and Japan.
With this trio of qualities – the technical prowess of automata design, longevity approaching three centuries and a global reputation – Jaquet Droz in the 21st century moves to a very different beat. To start with, there’s the Bird Repeater Geneva.
If one imagines that perpetual calendars, minute repeaters and tourbillons are uncommon exclusive watch types, then those containing automata are more rare still. As if to exploit a pun on ‘rara avis’, the Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater Geneva is – literally – both a rare bird and a cage of sorts for an actual, mechanical goldfinch. It is, like the larger automata with which Jaquet-Droz entertained the nobility of Europe, a self-contained spectacle, microscopic entertainment for the delight of the watch owner and his or her circle of friends.
As well as demonstrating that the company’s prowess with automata continues unabated, the name is comprised of three carefully chosen words to describe its capabilities. The ‘Bird’ is the subject of the moving drama. ‘Repeater’ tells you that this watch will sing the time, utterly appropriate when a bird dwells under its crystal. Lastly, ‘Geneva’ indicates that this watch honours the city where Pierre Jaquet-Droz opened his third workshop in 1784.
This timepiece is a microcosm of metiers des arts, the showcase of the talents of engravers, painters and enamellers. Behind the 12-hour dial, positioned just below the 12 o’clock position is a landscape where the pastoral and urban elements of 18th century Geneva converge on a palette of white mother-of-pearl. The scene encompasses Lake Geneva, the Jet d'Eau fountain, Le Phare des Pâquis lighthouse and the silhouette of the Salève, for no scene in Switzerland should be without a mountain.
From the centre downward, the watch’s raison d’être occupies the rest of the display. Shown in three-dimensional form are two colourful goldfinches, their nest located in the heart of Île Rousseau, known as ‘an island paradise for birds’ at the entrance to the lake. Breathtakingly realistic, the birds’ plumage is hand-sculpted in gold, yet possessing the full colours bestowed upon goldfinches by Mother Nature.
They protect and feed their two offspring, perched on either side of an egg in the middle of the nest. Every element of its construction can be discerned, every detail from each twig to every feather. One must continually remind oneself that the red gold object itself is only 47mm across, and yet it contains this breathtaking scene. Even if it offered no other attractions, it would be still be considered an horological achievement. But there’s more.
Automated birds have seduced buyers since the technology that first allowed little music boxes that, most famously, when opened, hosted a bird that would pop up and sing. Among the finest ever produced were those by Jaquet Droz, and its on-going series of wristwatches with automated birds, under ‘Les Ateliers d’Art,’ continues this tradition.
For The Bird Repeater Geneva, the company’s artisans developed eight animations that combine to show the parent goldfinches feeding their fledglings. The wings spread, water flows, birds chirp, and the egg hatches, in a ballet that pays tribute to the humanoid automata created by Pierre Jaquet-Droz and his son in the 18th century – these were the musician (a female organ player), the draughtsman (who can draw four images), and the draughtsman (who can write any text up to 40 letters long). When the egg opens and the observer first sees a hungry, newborn chick, a small cry of delight is impossible to suppress.
When you aren’t completely taken by the avian tableau, you’ll also notice the handsome disc of black onyx with two red gold hands showing hours and minutes. It is powered by the Jaquet Droz RMA88 hand-wound movement with a 48-hour power reserve. Like the number of animations and the brand’s attachment to the symbolism of the number, The Bird Repeater Geneva is issued in a limited series of only eight examples.
Slightly less dramatic, and exclusively for the ladies, is the Lady 8 Flower, which also displays an automaton, but this time with flora rather than fauna. Made of 18k white or red gold and set with diamonds, the dial features a gold butterfly set with gems that complement the case colour. Above it, in a dome all of its own, is a flower that blooms with opening petals. Each is fashioned from gold, engraved and enamelled by hand, with a diamond at its centre.
Should you require something less theatrical still than the Bird Repeater Geneva or the Lady 8 Flower, Jaquet Droz has also introduced a new timepiece that is almost staggering in its utter simplicity, its dial displaying only hours, minutes, seconds and date against a stark white dial. But it showcases a complication that few know of, the new version of the Grande Seconde features Independent or ‘Dead-Beat’ seconds, in which the hand jumps to each second marker and stops. This will confuse those who think it must mean that a quartz movement lurks within since it is actually an example of ultra-precise mechanical timekeeping. And if anything, it shows how wide the net cast by Jaquet Droz watches is, since they vary so broadly between the world of precise, mechanical watches and the artistic, artisanal ones.
