Jean-Louis Richter (1766-1841)
Learned his art under David-Etienne-Roux and Philippe-Samuel-Théodore Roux, becoming a most renowned enamel painter. His speciality was the painting of landscapes and particularly lake-side scenes and marine-scapes, often representing ships in a harbour or battles with fighting Men-of-War, but, on occasion, also portraits and hunting scenes. He did not often sign his work, but it is clearly recognised as being in his hand from the style and quality of the painting. He applied his art principally to watch cases and snuff boxes and these were largely destined for the Chinese, Turkish, British and Italian markets. In 1828 he was in partnership with Aimé-Julien Troll (1781-1852) and one can find work signed ?Richter et Troll?. Richter, like other great enamel painters of the time, often found inspiration for his work from paintings or engravings by the artists then in fashion particularly Claude Vernet.
William Ilbery
(ca. 1760-1839). Active in London from 1780 in Goswell Street, he moved to Duncan Terrace towards the end of the 18th century. Following James Cox in London and Jaquet Droz in Switzerland, he also specialised in the production of luxury watches for the Chinese Market. His early production was very much in the English style, featuring a full plate movement and an English type single wheel duplex escapement. However, for his highest quality watches, he incorporated a spring detent escapement. Later, the watch movements he produced were much inspired by the Lepine caliber with free-standing barrel, as were Jaquet Droz?s Swiss production signed in London and that of William Anthony, who worked in London. The cases of his watches were sumptuously decorated by the best Genevan enamelers, such as Jean-Francois-Victor Dupont, who usually signed his work, and Jean-Louis Richter, who signed rarely. He organized the production in Switzerland, mainly in Fleurier, of profusely engraved movements for the Asian market. He was followed in this by makers such as Bovet and Juvet who also worked in Fleurier (Val de Travers). Ilbery can therefore be considered one of the most representative makers of ?Chinese? watches. He seems to have maintained close contacts with the continental trade since a watch signed ?Ilbery Paris? is known and Ilbery & Son are recorded in London and Fleurier, as well as in Canton.
Timepieces have long been gifts of predilection. Symbols of power, of knowledge, messengers of culture, tokens of friendship, and guages of peace, they never failed to astonish and to please.
When the first diplomatic relations with China were established, during the reign of King Louis IX of France (1214-1270), animated pieces had their role to play. In 1253 Louis dispatched an ambassador to Manghu Khan, the Grand Khan of Tartary. This was the epoch of the great Mongol incursions which swept over Russia as far as Kiev, and southward as far as Poland and Hungary. An account of the voyage by the King?s ambassador, Guillaume de Rubruquis, a Flemish priest and traveler, is conserved in the British Museum. Originally in Latin, it was translated into English in 1629 and into French in 1839. This document states that among the prisoners of the Tartars at Karakarum was a certain Guillaume Boucher, a skilled goldsmith from Lyon who won the favor of the emperor of Tartary by constructing for him a monumental and marvelous automaton. Four silver lions lay at the foot of a great tree with boughs bearing silver leaves and fruits, and mare?s milk flowing from their half-opened jaws. On the inside, four conduits rose to the top of the tree and descended in the form of gilded serpents. Out of their mouths ran precious liqueurs to fill silver vessels. At the top, an angel sounded a trumpet when the cupbearer gave the order to pour out the draught. The apparatus was activated by means of a bellows worked by a man hidden in the base of the tree. Servants replenished nearby reservoirs with the liqueurs for the respective conduits. De Rubruquis? account is the first document proving the existence of an animated scene made to order for an Oriental personage, and it illustrates the interest which this aroused.
Another important element in the history of timepieces in the Orient is the penetration of Christianity into China. Jean de Montcorvin, as delegate of Pope Benoît VII, founded a missionary center at the end of the nineteenth century for spreading the gospel and the doctrine of Christ in China. The men who carried out their religious vocation in China also passed on the knowledge of instruments for measuring time.
Up until 1514, when routes to the Far East were opened by the Portuguese, nothing was known about clockmaking in the Celestial Empire. There were indeed water clocks in China, embellished with figures, the oldest of which date from the tenth century, but no trace of mechanical watchmaking is to be found before the middle of the sixteenth century. After the Portuguese had founded the city of Macao, they made use of it as an advanced military base and trading center, into which they funneled merchandise for export to Lisbon and to the rest of Europe.
One of the important goods of exchange they imported to China were European clocks. Father Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, left Nanking in 1599 to travel to Peking. In 1600 he was received by the Emperor Wan Li (1573-1620) as Portuguese ambassador. He brought with him some clocks, portable watches, a clavichord, and other curiosities. In Father Ricci?s biography, written in Chinese, reference is made to two watches striking the hours, offered to the Emperor on January 28, 1601.
The commercial opportunities and trade with China instigated by the Portuguese aroused growing interest, first among the Dutch and then the English.
A number of foreign expeditions discovered a market already dominated by the Portuguese, who enjoyed a virtual trade monopoly with Canton. It was only with the fusion of French interests in 1719, under the name of the Compagnie Française des Indes, that the watch trade with China fully prospered.
The Emperor K?ang Hsi (1662-1722) was aware of the primitive means used in his country to measure time and recognized the utility of mechanical clockmaking. In 1680 he ordered horological workshops to be opened in the palace grounds. For this purpose he brought together qualified clockmakers from throughout the Empire, who had been trained by the missionaries. The technical direction was entrusted to the Jesuit brother Louis Stadlin, a native of the canton of Zoug in Switzerland.
These workshops produced thousands of clocks and watches with workmanship approaching that of Europe. The mechanical design was copied from British and Dutch movements, but fell short of their quality and hence of their precision. The form and materials of the cases varied, but continued to show Western influence. While such clocks are still to be found, the pocket watches have become very rare. The cases, although not comparable to those of Europe, are nevertheless very attractive, especially the enamels, in which the choice of colors is always delicate and the polish highly refined. Champlevé and cloisonné enamels, smooth-surfaced or executed in relief, have motifs that are obviously stylistically influenced by decorative painting on porcelain, usually floral patterns that often feature peonies. The current rarity of these pieces can be attributed to their fragility, the toll taken by time, and the fact that production was very limited in the first place, having been broken off when the Imperial workshops were closed, some thirty years after the death of K?ang Hsi in 1722.
Under the Regency and the reign of Louis XV, trade and closer cultural relations with China, as well as the cult of Chinese curios, contributed to the promotion of European decorative arts, enabling European artists to become better acquainted with porcelain, lacquers, and inlay work. In the wake of these exchanges, French horologers discovered the Oriental market, and the Chinese fascination with watchmaking. Unfortunately, only a very few examples of this French work have come down to us. Other works conceived for China are part of the watchmaking heritage of Germany, Denmark, and England. The latter country had the added advantage of frequent voyages by representatives who presented the gifts offered to the Emperor of the Celestial Empire and to the powerful mandarins.
During this period, which preceded the appearance of the first Genevan watches in China, the existence of this important market allowed Geneva?s horological industry to continue to develop, despite frequent economic and social crises at home. Yet, although China was importing a considerable number of watches and clocks as early as the seventeenth century, this trade did not become really important until the reign of Ch?ien Lung (1736-1795). During this period, English production, although large, did not compare in quality and beauty with Genevan workmanship, and in France, the Age of Enlightenment had ended in a Revolution which overwhelmed the country and was among the chief reasons why so few watches were exported to the Orient.
But for Geneva, the story was different. It was an open city, at the crossroads of various political and religious trends, and a republic, the refuge of Huguenot artists. With its hard-working polyglot population, animated by the pioneer spirit that already characterized it in the Middle Ages, it offered all the commercial and economic advantages of a free city. Renowned for its fairs, its printed cottons and goldsmithery, it was equally well known for the courage and adventurous spirit of its traders, who traveled all the roads of Europe in search of new markets, as far as Asia Minor, North Africa, and Russia.
Although the influence of Geneva in the Middle East goes back to the seventeenth century, it was not until the eighteenth century that it made itself felt in China. Among the master craftsmen whose work traveled as far as the Orient, mention must be made of the Jaquet Droz father-and-son team and of their associate Leschot. Their extraordinarily beautiful and ingenious masterpieces enchanted emperors and men of wealth, the kings of Spain, France and England.
The pieces sent to the Orient bore the signatures of the Jaquet Droz and Leschot, or of James Cox who was in close contact with them. The Jaquet Droz and Leschot were artisans with highly varied production in terms of watchmaking and mechanics: automata, clocks, pocket watches, curio watches. Pieces of exceptionally good workmanship and refined luxury were produced: snuff boxes with singing birds, musical movements and automata, musical watches in the shape of flasks with automata, in gold and enamel, and decorated with pearls. They ordered watch cases from the best enamelers, engravers, engine-turners and stone-setters of Geneva.
Pierre Jaquet Droz died in 1790, leaving to posterity the evidence of his talent, which places him among the greatest watchmaking mechanicians of all time. A number of distinguished artisans came from his workshops, who with the benefit of the master?s experience and teaching became prodigious artists in their own right. Particularly worthy of mention is Jacob Frisard, who won distinction as a maker of fine watches and other pieces. It is probably he who, in collaboration with Jean-Frédéric Leschot, invented the sliding piston for modulating the song of the artificial birds, which was to lead to the creation of many exceptional pieces.
The house of Jaquet Droz is credited with being the first to introduce paired watches with symmetrical, mirror-image designs. This innovation has given rise to much discussion among experts, some of whom have come up with explanations we consider doubtful. Some thought that these watches were to be offered on the occasion of betrothal and marriage; others asserted that only a commercial goal was envisaged and that this pairing was intended to increase sales. One suggestion, which may come closer to the truth, concerns the requirements of repair work, for a second watch must surely have been indispensable to those living in the interior of the country, at great distances from the coastal cities, for a watch sent for repair might be returned to its owner several years later.
However, we believe the truth lies elsewhere and that wealthy collectors wished to possess twin watches and to see them hanging on the walls for display in pairs, with the designs reflecting each other as if in a mirror, in accordance with the Chinese love of symmetry. History clearly shows that gifts were given to superiors in duplicate, and nobody could run counter to this practice. Among famous examples are the two clocks with magicians, constructed by Jaquet Droz and presented to Ch?ien Lung in 1795 by the ambassador of Holland. The same custom held true for the horses of Mongolia, and for concubines, who were presented two at a time to the sons of Heaven. In the West also, certain objects of value are sold in pairs: vases, candlesticks, and pictures, for instance.
Following in the footsteps of the Jaquet Droz and Leschot, many other fine artisans constructed pieces for China and enjoyed considerable commercial success. The Frères Rochat, who often signed their pieces with the mark ?F.R.?, are probably the sons of David Rochat, who is mentioned in the Jaquet Droz account books as early as 1802. The Rochat workshop specialized in fine mechanical singing bird pieces, among which we find snuffboxes, vases, a mirror topped by a small rose out of which springs a tiny bird, and fantastic gold and enamel pistols, with a singing bird that pops out of them.
As concerns the China trade, two watchmakers from the beginning of the nineteenth century must be mentioned: Isaac-Daniel Piguet (1775-1845) and Philippe- Samuel Meylan (1772- 1845). As associates from 1811 to 1828, they constructed watches, musical snuffboxes, and other pieces featuring automata and music, which were much soughtafter, especially in the Orient. The watches they created for China established a very particular style for that trade. Piguet and Meylan specialized in complicated musical watches, with repeaters, singing birds and barking dogs, power reserves of eight days, two hundred days, and even (very rarely) one year. The watch cases were highly individualized, full of charming detail. They adopted the forms of fantasy watches in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth century and gave free reign to their imagination: geometric deigns, droplets, ovals, lozenges, fruit, flasks, hearts. They had the advantage of highly reputed collaborators such as François Dupont, Richter, Dufaux, L?Evesque, Roux and Lissignol for painting on enamel, and Reymond and Patru for precious metal work.
A watch by Piguet and Meylan was notable for its designs, its beauty, its elegance and for the harmony of its colors: it was enriched with pearls and precious stones, sometimes lavishly set. The dials for China were generally white enamel with Roman numerals composed of short, broad strokes. The hands were steel and there was a direct-drive center seconds hand, rarely an auxiliary seconds dial.
Another family of watchmakers that began to work for the China trade early in the nineteenth century and continued to do so for generations was the Bovet family of Fleurier, called the Bovets of China. The first, Edouard (1797-1849) was the son of Jean-Jacques, and the fourth of six brothers. While still very young he began his apprenticeship with the Bobillier brothers in Marseille, where he showed more commercial ability than manual skill. The story has it that at the age of twenty he left for China. By chance he had taken four watches with him, and a mandarin, filled with wonder at these little machines, bought them for the exorbitant sum of SFr 10,000 each. Whereupon Edouard Bovet wrote to his brothers in Fleurier asking them to send some more, and stated that he would make a fortune for all of them if they would follow his advice. The brothers were somewhat hesitant and when they insisted on being paid immediately for the watches they shipped, he sent them a gold ingot. Encouraged by this success, together they set up a firm in Canton. It prospered, to the extent that Edouard Bovet later said, ?If my brothers had let me have my way, I would have made enough money to fill the Vallon with it.?
The Bovet enterprise had the advantage of the designs of Genevan decorators who consistently maintained their reputation for good taste. During the London period watches were signed ?Bovet London?; after the move to Fleurier, ?Bovet à Fleurier? and later ?Tevob?, which is Bovet spelled backwards. Many other watchmakers were important in the history of Chinese trade. The house of Vaucher was founded by Charles-Henri Vaucher (1760-1865), from Fleurier. The firm was called Vaucher Frères until 1880, when it was represented in Hong Kong. Generation after generation of gifted watchmakers came from this family. Among the artisan-suppliers of Vaucher we find the name of Constant Borel (1847), who later established himself independently in Foochow, where he died in 1864. The firm of Pustaw & Co. acted as his mercantile agent.
The two sons of Antoine Dimier of Geneva, Charles- Louis (1822-1896) and Auguste-Antoine (1824-1891), formed an association in 1848. The brothers graduated from the Collège de Genève and were then initiated into the art of watchmaking in a factory at Chaux-de- Fonds. About 1846 they set up a business in Fleurier, where Auguste Dimier managed the manufacture of ?Chinese? watches while Charles Dimier became the sales director, leaving at about the same time for Canton, where he founded the commercial firm of Dimier & Cie, with a special Chinese trademark pronounced Tien Ye. Business came to a complete halt in 1860 because of the war in China and Charles returned to Switzerland, where in 1862 he and his brother left Fleurier for Geneva.
The firm of Juvet, founded by Edouard Juvet (1820-1883) was the fourth of the great houses working for China, and it quickly rose in importance. Edouard Juvet settled in Buttes in 1842, moving to Fleurier in 1844, and organized a sales house in Shanghai about 1856. Like the others, Juvet manufactured the caliber invented by Bovet and also had cases made by the artisans of Geneva. The Juvet firm used several trade names in China, the most important being U Nah.
Along with the houses of Fleurier, the firm of Courvoisier Frères of Chauxde- Fonds ranks high among those that built up the watch trade with China. It exported to that country not only the hunter and Lépine caliber watches it manufactured, but also the ?Chinese? watch, in the style of Fleurier. Some of the pieces were rich and complicated, with perpetual calendars and chimes. Production continued from 1870 to 1900.
The house of Borel and Courvoisier of Neuchâtel (1859) had long-standing relations with Japan, and in 1880 established links with China through representatives in Hong Kong and Shanghai. They produced European watches and had the ?Chinese? style made for them in Fleurier.
The name of Vrard & Co. brings this historical summary of the Chinese watch trade to a close. This firm was founded in 1860 under the name of Laidrich & Vrard, later becoming Vrard & Co. It began operations in 1862 in Tientsin and shortly thereafter in Shanghai, where it was the agent for Bovet watches until 1894. Another trading station was opened in 1889 in Hangkow and then in Hong Kong. Watches produced by Vrard ranged from the commonplace to the most complicated, and like the Courvoisier firm, Vrard entrusted the decoration of the cases to the Geneva artists Marc Dufaux, Louis Millenet, Louis Pautex, P.-A. Champod and Louis Rosselet.
When we examine the work of these craftsmen in their ?Chinese? watches, we are struck by its remarkably high level of artistry and precision. This was indeed one of the most important periods in the history of decorative watchmaking. After this high point, the art of decoration declined slowly and inexorably as the commercial market responded to the popularity of this precious and necessary commodity. After a few attempts at resurrection, the art of elaborate decoration entirely disappeared. Was this due to a revolution in taste or in style?
Perhaps - but nevertheless, the fact remains that these watches so eagerly sought after today, guarded so jealously by their owners, who rightly consider them to be among the finest examples of an extraordinary period in Genevan watchmaking.