Besides its century-long-history that tells us about the savoir-faire of a manufactory able to craft automatons, there is something else that makes the Jaquet Droz Loving Butterfly Automaton entirely original and unique; this watch links together the missing dots between the classic Jaquet Droz collections, its take on the high-end collections, and the chapter in its history devoted to automatons. These are two worlds that, until today, were entirely separated from each other.
Time, love, and nature mix up with romanticism on this timepiece; if you look at the dial, you will immediately experience an overwhelming sense of animation, even when the mechanism I will tell you about later on in this article is not in full action.
The forest around La Chaux-de-Fonds comes to life around the hours and minutes counters of a Jaquet Droz Petite Heure Minute, the basis the brand used to develop its Loving Butterfly Automaton.
The Draughtsman: the automaton, crafted in 1775, inspired the Jaquet Droz Loving Butterfly Automaton.
When I first heard the story behind this animation concept, I thought I had misheard something, but then I read the press release and the same content on the brand’s official website at least three times in a row and realized it was all true.
I even browsed the Internet to look for related videos and found out that, from 1773 onwards, Pierre-Jaquet Droz crafted three automaton-androids, namely The Draughtsman, The Writer, The Musician, the first of whom could draw using a pen, and that happened at a time when nothing like that was around.
Pierre-Jaquet Droz crafted a calculator, probably the very first one (s) in history that could code information logically and in order, which could both write and draw. All this is documented in various videos, including one where the automaton The Writer is shown after its restoration, which occurred during a press conference held by Jaquet Droz in 2011.
Among the many drawings created by the automaton, the manufacturer decided to reproduce the picture of a little angel carried by a butterfly through the forest of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
The crafting of the Jaquet Droz Loving Butterfly Automaton summarises three different experiences of this Swiss manufacturing company: precision mechanics, the crafting of automatons, and the solid artisanal tradition used for decorating, enamelling, and etching. These artisanal skills have often gone, but Jaquet Droz has always stayed loyal to tradition.
If you press the coaxial button to the crown, the butterfly starts moving and pulling the chariot, whose wheels start rotating. Mobile spokes mix with fixed spokes on the wheels so that the final result is a gyroscopic effect that enhances the feeling of movement of the chariot.
The speed of the butterfly’s wings is delicate and precise, with no jerky or sudden motion. Here is a movement ensuring up to 2.5 wing beats per second, two entire minutes when the power reserve is at its peak (three winding barrels allow the animation to last for a long time).
If the characteristics of the dials crafted by Jaquet Droz are pretty famous, the Jaquet Droz Loving Butterfly Automaton was released in two versions; one version is in black onyx on an 18-karat red gold case, while the second version is in white gold, with the dial made of black mother of pearl from Polynesia, the Jaquet Droz’s crafting skills of all the decorative elements is relatively new to the general public in most cases and is hand-made by the Jaquet Droz’s artisans; all the decorative pieces on the dial are carefully hand-crafted and hand-assembled in the Jaquet Droz’s laboratories.
To give you a simple idea of this manufacturing company’s savoir-faire, remember that the trees are only 0.2 mm thick! The final aesthetic (and function-related) touch to this complication is in the oscillating mass in red or white gold of the automatic calibre, featuring the same half-circle shape as the little angel’s chariot wheel.
This timepiece is a triumph of details, ranging from the crafting of the trees to that of the leaves, all the way to the etching located at the base of the little angel’s chariot. Its Price? 130’800€.
(Photo credit: Horbiter®)
Gaetano C @Horbiter®
