The 17th Century, the Golden Age of Watchmaking (Part 2)
By: Sílvio Pereira
As promised in the previous article, of 24-12-2022, we now present the second of three parts devoted to the watchmaking of the 17th century, regarded as the golden century. This 2nd part is devoted to the watchmaking produced in France during that century.
The 17th Century in French Watchmaking
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes (which granted the Huguenots a guarantee of religious tolerance) in October 1685 by Louis XIV, grandson of Henry IV (who had originally signed it), caused an exodus of Protestants and increased the hostility of the Protestant nations bordering France. Among those people there were also many fine watchmakers. This contributed to the decline of French production in comparison with English production. In France, besides the usual round or ovoid case shapes, others with strange shapes appeared. Watches were made in the shape of a heart, ivy, a cross, a sphere, a shell, a skull and a tulip. Most of these watches have rock-crystal fronts so that the time can be read without opening the case (glass only became available for watches from 1650).
Various watch shapes. From left to right: flower, scallop shell, cross, pumpkin, and in the form of a book. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Example with an enamel dial. IWM, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Around 1630, many cases were exquisitely enamelled with biblical or mythological scenes. Dials, too, began to be painted in vivid colours. This style was introduced in France, especially in Paris, Blois and Limoges. Most of the work after 1660 was done in Switzerland, Geneva being the most important centre. During the reign of Louis XIV, watches became round and enormous again. Because of their large size and rounded shape, they came to be called 'oignons' (onions). Their diameter can reach 55mm, with a distance of 17mm between the bridges and plates. The gilt-brass cases are generally engraved, and the dials are of enamelled brass with large black or blue Roman numerals (as is the case with the example in the author's collection, presented in the previous article). Some dials are of gilt brass with enamelled cartouches for the hours. Some astronomical information is already to be found, such as day/date, moon phases, astrological signs and even the equation of time.
Watches were a privilege of the rich and, especially under the reign of Louis XIV, were regarded as a status symbol, hence the large size. The king himself was very fond of watchmaking, enabling and encouraging scientific research on the subject.
Pierre Le Seyne, Paris, ca. 1615
The image above shows the remains of a French movement made around 1610 by the Parisian watchmaker Pierre Le Seyne. Unfortunately, the entire mainspring has disappeared; only the plates, the engraved dial, the round baluster pillars, the steel stop and the steel parts of the regulating wheel remain.
This movement is made in the German or English Puritan style, without much decoration. The later German versions are known as 'Nürnberger Ei' (Nuremberg eggs).
Pierre Le Seyne is recorded at the “Palais de Paris”, active between 1612 and 1648. He was elected Juré in 1616.
Private collection (United Kingdom)
Thomas Ribart, Paris, c. 1625
In these images one can admire a small oval movement in gilt brass. The dial plate is richly decorated with engraved fruit and exotic animals. Among them is the recently discovered pineapple, known as a symbol of welcome. The silvered dial is engraved with a country scene showing a village, a church, sheep and a man tending the sheep. The movement is fitted with a single steel hand to show the hours.
The verge escapement movement was driven by a cord made of pig gut; later (around 1650) this would slowly be replaced by a chain, which is stronger.
The cock (balance bridge) is fixed with a pin; this construction would also be strengthened by the later use of a screw.
Thomas Ribart was a master watchmaker in Paris, at ‘rue de la Pelleterie, enseigne des Singes’, registered from 1604.
Private collection (SCT)
‘Tulip’ watch case, France, 1635
Bronze, a modern reproduction of a tulip-shaped case from the early 17th century. Usually quite small in format, this case imitated the flower, then very expensive, grown mainly in Holland. Sometimes the “petals” were inlaid with rock crystal or painted porcelain panels. Tulip cultivation began in Persia, probably in the 10th century. Carolus Clusius is largely responsible for the spread of tulip bulbs in Europe in the last years of the 16th century. He completed the first major research work on tulips in 1592 and recorded the variations in colour. While a member of the faculty of the medical school of the University of Leiden (Holland), Clusius created a teaching garden with tulips in his private garden. In 1596 and 1598, more than a hundred bulbs were stolen from his garden at a single stroke.
Between 1634 and 1637, enthusiasm for the new flowers triggered a speculative frenzy that became known as “tulip mania”. The bulbs became so expensive that they were treated as a form of currency, or rather, as futures. At that time, a ceramic tulip vase was devised for displaying cut flowers. Vases and bouquets, usually including tulips, frequently appeared in Dutch still-life paintings. To this day, tulips are associated with Holland, and the cultivated forms of the tulip are often called “Dutch tulips”. Holland has the largest permanent display of tulips in the world at the Keukenhof.
'Memento Mori' watch case, France, 1650
Silver “memento mori”, a modern reproduction of a mid-17th-century watch case in the shape of a human skull. This case was made in exactly the same way as more than 300 years ago. In former times, timepieces were a fitting reminder that one's time on Earth grows shorter with every passing minute. Public clocks would be decorated with mottoes such as “ultima forsan” (“perhaps the last” [hour]) or “vulnerant omnes, ultima necat” (“they all wound, and the last kills”). Even today, clocks often bear the motto “tempus fugit” (“time flies”). Some old clocks featured automata that appeared and struck the hour; some of the celebrated automaton clocks of Augsburg, in Germany, showed Death striking the hour.
The various computerised “death clocks” revive this old idea. People carried smaller reminders of their own mortality. These portable 'Memento Mori' watches came into fashion in France and Great Britain around 1650 and reappeared at the end of the 19th century. Mary, Queen of Scots, owned a large watch carved in the form of a silver skull, embellished with lines from Horace.
Balthazar (l'Ainé) & Gilles Martinot, Paris, 1675
In these images we can see a gilt-brass watch, with a verge escapement movement without fusee, and a three-arm brass balance with a steel balance spring (hairspring). Fusee replaced by an additional fourth wheel. Two-footed cock in silver-gilt (vermeil). Because there is no chain, the barrel is also fitted with a wheel. The hour wheel, the dial plate, the dial and the hour hand are missing. Silver-gilt (vermeil) case with decoration typical of the late 17th century, such as scallop shells and scrolls.
The introduction of the balance spring revolutionised timekeeping. Before the balance spring was added, watches varied by up to 40 minutes a day. The incredible gain in accuracy led many watchmakers (including Thomas Tompion) to think that they could build simpler watches and maintain accuracy by omitting the fusee and the chain. A conceptual error, which was corrected very quickly by adding the balance spring and reintroducing the fusee. Most verge escapement watches without fusee from the period 1675 – 1680 were new constructions; some, however, are modified watches that had previously been fitted with a fusee. Few of these watches have survived, since customers quickly noticed the lack of accuracy caused by the absence of the fusee and discarded these watches or exchanged them for examples with fusee and helical spring.
Christiaan Huygens 14.4.1629 – 8.7.1695
In 1675, Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch physicist and mathematician, revolutionised accuracy in timekeeping by introducing the balance spring. He moved to Paris in 1665, where he remained for 15 years, funded by Colbert, finance minister to King Louis XIV. Huygens studied oscillations and began to take an interest in timekeeping. In 1657 he invented the pendulum as the regulating organ of large clocks, which allowed them to reach a hitherto unknown accuracy. During later investigations on the subject, he recognised the parallels between the oscillations of a pendulum and the change in shape of a spring. By adding a spring to the balance of a watch, he wanted to achieve isochronous oscillations similar to those of a pendulum. The original notes show that the shape he chose for this spring was indeed a spiral.
Huygens commissioned the Parisian watchmaker Isaac Thuret to build a watch with a balance spring. The first model was completed on 22 January 1675. Thuret was so impressed by the accuracy of the watch that he built a second one. Moreover, he began to talk about these new and improved watches and led people to think that he had invented the new system. He even tried to patent it, but Huygens's intervention made him write a letter of apology in which he admits that Huygens is indeed the inventor. The invention was then published on 25 February 1675 in the 'Journal des Sçavans'.
Strangely, Huygens may not, after all, be the inventor of the balance spring! Jean de Hautefeuille, a French priest, inventor and scientist, presented his invention of the balance spring to the French Academy of Sciences on 7 July 1674, which rejected it.
Furthermore, it was not Thuret but Huygens who was in contact with Hautefeuille and obtained his permission to apply the balance spring to his watches, on the grounds that he had improved it and put it into practice. In 1675, Hautefeuille still protested against the attribution of the invention to Huygens, but was unable to prove anything, so he finally gave up.
However, an English inventor also laid claim to the perfecting of the balance spring, when at some point between 1675 and 1680 Thomas Tompion and Robert Seignior developed the ideas of Hooke and Huygens in a small series of watches for the King.
Abraham Yver, Angoulême, 1680
The images above show a gilt-brass watch, fusee movement, verge escapement, 46.7 mm in diameter. Tall Egyptian pillars. Everything is missing except the fusee and the mainspring arbor. It would have had a large, highly decorated cock with a small balance-spring tension regulator and a white enamelled copper dial. It is a relic of a very early type of ‘oignon’ (onion) movement.
Abraham Yver (Hyver or Yuer, 1620 – 1680), the patriarch of what would become one of the most influential watchmaking families in northern France. In the 'Memoire sur la Généralité de Limoges' published in 1698, one can read that the Yver family of Angoulême had the highest reputation among royalty in the towns of Saintes, Blois, Poitiers and others. All the members of the family were Protestants and there were ties with watchmakers in Blois. Ten members of the Yver family are recorded as working in Angoulême between 1670 and 1783.
French ‘oignon’ dials, 1685 – 1700
These are gilt-copper dials with white enamelled cartouches (47 – 50.3mm). Cartouches with blue or black Roman numerals for the hours and small cartouches for the Arabic minutes (most of them missing). Three pins for fixing to the dial plate. Openings for the case screw, the hour and minute pinion and the mainspring winding hole. Gilt central panels decorated with symmetrical scrolls, animals and architectural elements
The first dials used for the "onion-style" watches fashionable during the reign of Louis XIV were copper-based with white enamel and Roman numerals enamelled in blue or black, with Arabic minute numerals. At first with a few decorative features, from around 1685 they came to be gilt with enamelled cartouches and blue or black Roman numerals. Some types keep the Arabic minute indication in small separate cartouches on the edge. Most dials of this type have an inset enamelled ring with five-minute markings. These dials were used with the first single-hand 'onions' or with two-hand versions, as soon as the minute hand was introduced. Larger versions of these dials were used for mantel clocks until the end of the 18th century. Not only French makers used these dials; Swiss, German and Italian makers also followed the French taste of Louis XIV.
Mousset, Paris, c. 1690
Here we have a consular watch in gilt brass (55.9mm case, oignon), a fusee movement with verge escapement and small regulator, and a large-diameter (30.9mm) two-footed cock with a three-arm steel balance. Back plate signed 'MOVSSET A PARIS'. With Egyptian pillars, gilt copper, an engraved dial with enamelled cartouches with Roman numerals painted in dark blue, and one steel hand.
Private collection, Bordeaux (F)
In the third and final part of this article devoted to the 17th century we will talk about the watchmaking of Switzerland (Geneva) and the Low Countries.
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