This year, the 10th anniversary of the presentation of the first “Chronomètre à Résonance,” a unique mechanism by the Geneva-based watchmaker F. P. Journe, coincided with an exceptional horology sale at Sotheby’s in Paris.
In collaboration with the French auction house and the horology specialists Chayette & Cheval, Sotheby’s held a sale this month of rarely seen historical pieces that included an armillary planetarium, a double-dial pedestal regulator and a calendrical table regulator, all signed by the 18th-century French clockmaker Antide Janvier.
Among his achievements, Mr. Janvier is credited with the fabrication of the first double-pendulum, or resonance, clock, based upon the natural phenomenon of resonance recognized a century earlier by Galileo in his investigations of musical strings and pendulums.
“Before becoming an horologer, Janvier was a mathematician consumed by astronomy,” said the watchmaker François-Paul Journe, at a conference held during the preview of the sale at Sotheby’s.
It was Mr. Janvier’s mechanism that Mr. Journe adapted for the “Chronomètre à Résonance” wristwatches that he began making 10 years ago, relying on the natural phenomenon of resonance for accuracy.
The Janvier pieces in the auction came from the collection of Marcel Mennesson, the French inventor of the VeloSolex motorized bicycle, himself a mechanical genius and horology connoisseur.
“The Janvier pieces are a very rare ensemble,” said Hervé Chayette, Parisian auctioneer and horology expert. “Janvier did not produce much in his lifetime, and to have three pieces at once is exceptional.”
The Janvier pedestal double-dial regulator, a museum-quality piece last seen in 1949 in an exhibition called “Masterpieces of Horology” at the Musée du Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, was sold for €432,750, or about $595,000, a belated recognition for a brilliant clockmaker who died in poverty and obscurity.
Mr. Janvier, who died in 1835 with no heirs, was a contemporary of Abraham-Louis Bréguet, founder of the eponymous watch brand. While Mr. Bréguet went on to build a successful business in own lifetime, one that was later successfully carried on by his descendants, Mr. Janvier is remembered today only by the most erudite of timepiece connoisseurs.
“The only 18th-century clockmaker whose name the public remembers today is Bréguet,” Mr. Chayette said. “His son took the reins after him, and his descendants went on to build a dynasty, until in the 19th century, the family sold the business that today is owned by the Swatch Group.”
The preview of the sale was the occasion for Mr. Journe to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his own resonance-based collection.
“Resonance occurs when two suspended pendulums of the same frequency swing in the same plane,” he said. “Janvier used his knowledge of this natural phenomenon to build clocks with two identical pendulums closely regulated to the same rate to take advantage of this effect so that each pendulum would correct any errors in the other.”
At the same conference, Jean-Claude Sabrier, a watchmaking expert and former consultant to the Swatch Group, explained that “this is because two pendulums working side by side would, over time, become synchronized, even if placed in different rooms.”
The son of a farm worker who later turned to horology, Mr. Janvier was initiated from a young age to horology while studying theories of astronomy and mechanics.
“At 12, Janvier already had solid notions both of astronomy and horology,” Mr. Sabrier said. “At 17, he presented a planetary sphere to the Academy of Sciences of Besançon, to high commendations.”
At 33, Mr. Janvier left his native Jura region to settle in Paris, having already sold a pair of mechanized spheres to the King Louis XVI, and armed with a book filled with court orders for precision clocks. Soon thereafter, he was appointed “horloger-mécanicien de Monsieur, frère du Roi,” official clockmaker to the king’s brother.
It was during the tumultuous years of around the French Revolution, from 1788 to 1801, that Mr. Janvier created his masterpieces, including two four-faced astronomical clocks surmounted by mechanical spheres. The first was purchased by Louis XVI in 1789, three months before the storming of the Bastille. It was destroyed in the fire at the Tuileries Palace in 1871. The other remains today in a private collection. It was also during the same period that Mr. Janvier is believed to have begun making his first resonance clocks.
After the revolution, despite securing a pension and public housing, and while Mr. Bréguet built a successful business among the new French elite, Mr. Janvier’s financial situation deteriorated for reasons that are not well understood.
By 1812, the date he completed the resonance clock offered in the Sotheby’s sale, Mr. Janvier was in bankruptcy and his possessions auctioned to pay debts.
Six years later, while Bréguet’s business flourished on the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris, Janvier returned to his native Jura, where he died in poverty in 1835.
“Janvier was ahead of his time,” Mr. Journe said. “Part of his genius was his reductionism. He would remove pieces, synthesize movements and simplify his mechanics while increasing precision. He could do with four wheels what was done with five before him.”
In 1980, while employed in a restoration atelier tending to antique clocks, Mr. Journe came upon one of Bréguet’s resonance regulators. “Prior to that, I had not seen a regulator,” he said. “I was seduced by the mechanism even before I became a watchmaker.”
When he received his first order for a handmade pocket watch, Mr. Journe proposed a resonance-based mechanism to his client.
“It was the second watch I had ever made,” he recalled. “It was not a success but I told myself I would start again.”
Fifteen years passed before he would attempt the same feat again, realizing with experience that the mechanism, more than a gadget, helped establish equilibrium inside the watch, protecting it from interference by external forces.
“Most wristwatches accelerate or slow down because of outside vibrations,” Mr. Journe said. “A resonance system envelops the watch’s mechanism with such force that it stops any disturbance and enhances the movement’s precision. It is nature establishing an equilibrium.”
At an auction in 2001, Mr. Journe paid nearly $1 million for a resonance precision regulator made by Janvier, a moment he called “extremely emotional.”
“It was the first known application of the phenomenon of resonance. It symbolized the link between my own ‘Chronomètre à résonance’ and the most interesting 18th-century research,” Mr. Journe wrote on his company’s Web site.
Another such regulator is at the Paul Dupuis Museum in Toulouse and a desk-top version is at the Patek Philippe museum in Geneva.
While celebrating a decade of making resonance wristwatches, Mr. Journe also announced that the Journe Résonance collection would now be ended.
“We have decided to close the chapter on what was already a very exclusive limited edition and a fascinating adventure,” he said.
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