FROM THE HISTORY OF MECHANICAL TIMEPIECES

Of the ancient timepieces such as sun clocks, clepsydras,iA clepsydra was an ancient Greek time-keeping device that measured time by the regulated flow of water into or out of a vessel. The name comes from the Greek word κλέπτω (kléptō), meaning ‘to steal’, and ὕδωρ (hydor), meaning ‘water’ and fire or sand timers (hourglasses), only the sand timers are still in use. These have long become the symbol of vanitas (from Latin, meaning ‘vanity’, in the sense of emptiness or a worthless action), both in the paintings of symbolists and in hospital rooms. The most precious unit of time, the human lifespan, did not end according to any calendars. Like a fire being extinguished or sand slipping through an hourglass, life ebbs away like water from a clepsydra.

During the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, scientists and engineers tried to control time and measure it precisely. They developed mechanisms that were moved with the aid of a free-falling weight and were wound up once a day or once a week, and these occasions would often be turned into performances. Clock towers, with their intricate designs, featured various symbolic images, like the rising and setting sun, and played music. These multistorey clock faces enchanted the public and were like attending the theater, cinema, or circus for the crowds.

Time was a collective and shared experience, and therefore set the rhythm of social life. One had to obey the hands of the clock as they governed daily activities. And it was not only people that adorned themselves with timepieces but cities as well, as clocks were raised high on the royal castles or on cathedral bell towers. The church oversaw these timepieces, and in turn, regulated the schedule of work and prayer, broadcasting the time to its flock from the bell towers.

In the sixteenth century, Switzerland was as fortunate as the HuguenotsiHuguenots was a term used in France to describe the Protestant minority. It is derived from the German word eidgenosse, meaning ‘confederate’, referring to members of the Protestant union in Genevain France were unfortunate. As the French Catholics’ persecution of the Huguenots intensified, many skilled horologists among them fled to the republics of Neuchâtel and Geneva, where CalvinismiAn influential branch of Protestantism named after its founder John Calvin, the dictator of Geneva (1509-1564) was the dominant belief. Though they were not warmly welcomed by fellow workmen and religious folk, they managed to find a space there. Open luxury was forbidden by the frugal doctrines of Protestantism and Calvinism, and this is when useful watches replaced ‘pointless’ jewelry pieces. And over time, reformed Switzerland along with Protestant Britain became pioneers of watch fashion and the ‘talent foundry’ for horological innovation across Europe and the world.

In the race for timekeeping precision, horology became a state matter and one of the main competitions among European states. Each country was trying to create the marine chronometer before anyone else because without knowing the exact time, it was impossible to find the exact location of a ship in the open sea. The marine chronometer allowed navigators to determine longitude by comparing Greenwich Mean Time and the local time at the ship’s location, calculated using celestial bodies. This breakthrough in timekeeping was essential for safe travel, and governments understood that the domination of world trade routes depended on this device.

In 1714, the British Parliament promised a significant award to anyone who found a way to determine longitude in the absence of visible points of reference. The prize went to a British craftsman whose contribution to the British navy was no less than that of Admiral Nelson. In 1761, John Harrison (1693–1776) designed and built the marine chronometer. This Manhattan project of the eighteenth century is depicted in the modern series Longitude.

Ever since then, French, British, and Swiss horologists have been supplying precise time to the militaries of the world. Step-counter watches determined the correct rhythm of the military formations, and artillery watches measured the distance to the enemy positions. Time became a powerful tool for generals and admirals, but it could defeat them just as quickly. One example of this is that during the Battle of Tsushima in the Korean Strait—the greatest naval defeat for the Russian navy in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905—marine chronometers made by the same Swiss maker Ulysse Nardin were present on both Russian and Japanese battleships. And yet, the outcome was disastrous only for the Russians. While the science of horology brought the enemies to one battlefield, it was the cannons that decided the result.

Apart from state projects, horologists were also driven by the mesmerizing desire to create the most beautiful and complex mechanisms in the world. The Swiss horologist Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721–90) was famous for his automatas, mechanical androids that worked with gear wheels that could mimic human actions like playing music or writing. He traveled the world with these inventions and visited the courts of almost every European and Asian monarch, astonishing them with the talents of his mechanical pets.

Three of the most famous automatas he built are in a museum in Neuchâtel. These extraordinary creations are the Draughtsman, who sketches the portrait of Louis XV and Tutu the dog (sometimes scandalously confusing one with the other); the Writer, who can write entire phrases; and the Musician, who plays the harpsichord while breathing loudly аnd freely.

Jaquet-Droz traded with China, and his automata were prized by the emperors of the last Qing dynasty. He sold them mechanical singing birds that were driven by intricate clockwork. It’s not for nothing that Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Nightingale’ about a competition between a mechanical and real nightingale starts with the words, ‘The emperor of China is a Chinaman, as you most likely know, and everyone around him is a Chinaman too.’

Around the same time, another legendary horologist, Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), was active during various regimes in France, including the reigns of Louises, before and after restoration, Napoleon, and the post-Napoleonic era under Alexander I. Breguet, or rather his entire family, created the most complex and expensive timepieces of the time, including the famous Marie-Antoinette watch, known for its craftsmanship and design.

Intended as a gift for the young queen Marie Antoinette, the watch had to combine all of the horological complexities known at that time: a full calendar, equation of time,iA mechanism that showed the difference between the astronomical solar day and the average solar dayalarm clock, minute repeater,iA complication on a mechanical timepiece that chimed the hours or minutes using little hammers, and sometimes played melodiespower reserve indicator, thermometer, chronograph hand, and double impact protection. Breguet aimed to surpass all previous achievements in horology in order to impress the queen of France with the ‘queen of timepieces’.

A young aristocrat and officer of the French Guards explained the queen’s commission to Breguet: ‘You may take as much time as you wish, and you will receive any price you ask for.’ Unfortunately, Marie Antoinette was never able to enjoy the timepiece. When she was being beheaded on 16 October 1793, the piece was still on Breguet’s table. He had worked on it for almost half a century, until his death, but still never finished it. It was finally completed by Breguet’s son Louis-Antoine.

The Swiss, with their love of counting, say that the Marie-Antoinette piece was completed thirty-four years after her death, forty-four years after the commission was made, and four years after the death of the horologist who started it. The journey of the famous timepiece does not end there—it disappeared, surfaced in private collections, was stolen from museums, and found again. Finally, the modern brand Breguet began to make the legendary timepiece again.

Even today, the interest in ultra-complex and super expensive watches remains strong. On 11 November 2014, a Patek Philippe pocket watch made in 1932 was sold at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva for 24 million dollars. This watch was commissioned by banker Henry Graves Jr, a well-known collector of watches and paintings and the owner of his own island. He commissioned the famous Genovese brand to make the most complex watch in the world just to spite his friend James Packard. At that time, the rich were trying to outdo each other with watches as they now do with yachts. The work on the secret commission continued for five years, and the massive golden onion arrived in America only in 1933.

Graves did beat his opponent; the Henry Graves Super Complication watch turned out to be the most complicated timepiece in existence until recently, when its record was broken by contemporary magnate William Berkley. On his commission, another equally famous Genovese brand made an astonishing watch, the Berkley Grand Complication, which weighed almost a kilogram.

The Swiss approach to horology allowed Swiss watchmakers to act as timekeepers of other nations and be spectators to world history. During the Second World War, Swiss watches were worn by the pilots of all the armies involved in the conflict. Later, Swiss watches conquered space on the wrists of astronauts and measured the time for all events in the Olympic games, cementing their position as symbols of accuracy and excellence.

Even in 1969, when the first Japanese quartz watches entered the market, the Swiss remained unshaken. They shifted their focus to the high art of watchmaking, having made it clear to the world that they were paying not for the privilege of knowing what the time was but for the creation of an artist. Today, while phones, fridges, and microwaves can tell you the time, timekeeping has transformed from a fierce, almost divine influence into a mundane way to manage deadlines.

Across the ages, horologists' beautiful creations have brought back a sense of the sacred and cosmic nature of time, and it has been done with nostalgia and tenderness. If timepieces do still evoke the fear of death, they do it with a sense of humor, like the Time-Eater, a timepiece created last year by Konstantin Chaykin in collaboration with Louis Erard. This watch is a whole different monster, sweet and hand-reared, or should we say wrist-reared, honoring a mythological creature from Russian folklore and offering a playful interpretation of our relationship with time.

Even today, centuries after their invention, Peter Henlein’s spring and Christiaan Huygens’ spiral remain the fundamental elements of timepiece mechanisms, which consist of several functional blocks. The spring, which is compressed by the wind-up key, stores energy inside the drum of the watch, which powers the timekeeping function. In 1861, Jean Adrien Philippe made a significant advancement and replaced the traditional key with a crown.

In watches wound by hand, the energy is spent as the watch operates, requiring regular winding. In self-winding watches, the movement of a special rotor, which is caused by the movement of the wearer’s wrist, continuously winds up the spring. This mechanism, used in Breguet’s time and patented in 1924 by John Harwood, now has many variations. The balance wheel, which regulates the timekeeping, can be designed in many ways. It can be sectoral, can hide in the mechanism if the latter needs to be thin, be positioned along the circumference, or move in a linear fashion like a weight on medical scales—it all depends on the design and esthetics of the watch.

The drum passes the energy on to the main wheel. It would spin freely but the balance wheel slows it down. The movements of the Huygens’ spring release the energy in small portions that are counted by the anchor, allowing the system of the wheel gears to rotate to the distance that equals one second on the watch face.

The wheels of hours and minutes are connected to the escape wheel, and their number depends on the number of hands the watch has and whether they are moving in hourly or minute rhythm.

This is the standard mechanism in which complications can be added in the shape of additionally layered on modules or pre-built functions.

Chronographs, which are designed to measure and record periods of time, in their most perfect version are considered the main or the ‘great’ complication. For example, the split-second chronograph, which has two seconds hands one under the other, allows one to measure two time spans; the flyback chronograph has a function that allows one to reset and restart the seconds hand.

Additionally, the chronograph case usually has two buttons, one for starting and stopping the counting of time and another for resetting and returning the seconds hand into the home position of 12 o’clock. Many brands also use the single button chronograph, which is now making a comeback.

A tourbillon is a special advanced module to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy by compensating for effects of the Earth's gravity. It was originally designed by Breguet for pocket watches, and it ensures that they function as well in a vertical position as they do in a horizontal one.

In wristwatches where the position of the watch constantly changes, the tourbillon has become more of a decoration, unless, of course, it’s a tourbillon with several axes. These are built on the principle of a gyroscope and are designed to maintain the orientation of the anchor mechanism regardless of the position of the wrist.

Today, there are also watches that contain a GMT module featuring an additional hand to track a second time zone. Some advanced models even include a world time function, which displays several time zones simultaneously.

Watch engineers have adapted timepieces to not only count hours and minutes but to track the days and years well. Thus, calendars are amongst the most intricate and rare watch complications. The most precise ones are able to switch from the thirtieth to the thirty-first of the month when required and tell the difference between a leap year and standard years without needing the user’s intervention. Some of the most advanced watches are designed to maintain accuracy for tens, and sometimes hundreds, of years.

In addition, calendars in watches are often equipped with lunar phases indicators, and some rare models even display the movements of other planets of the solar system. Astronomical watches thus play the role of wrist planetariums.

The ‘queen’ or pinnacle of all watch complications, however, is the minute repeater. Watches with repeaters chime the time, just like the clocks on bell towers used to in the past. Designed to tell the time in the dark, chiming timepieces have become expensive toys. Some models chime every quarter of an hour or every hour, and you will also find minute repeaters chiming different sounds every hour, then every quarter of the hour and every minute. To tell the time by ear, though, one needs to get into the habit.