An exhibition documenting the watchmaking history of Jaquet Droz has brought together timepieces housed in three different watchmaking museums in Switzerland.
The exhibition, called Automated & Merveilles, was launched on June 21. It features Jaquet Droz timepieces usually housed in three different museums: The Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel, the Musée International d’Horlogerie de La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Musée d’Horlogerie du Locle-Château des Monts.
The show documents the work of the 18ct century clockmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis and their colleague Jean-Frédéric Leschot. Timepieces from the 18th century through to today will be on show.
The idea of an exhibition came about after the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel decided it wanted to gain “more scientific knowledge about these creative geniuses and the world of clockwork automata”.
Originally from the Neuchâtel Mountains, the Jaquet Droz father and son team became famous in Europe and world-wide for producing luxury goods with elegant designs.
Among their original creations were tiny jewellery objects with miniature mechanisms and musical clockwork creatures such as singing birds.
The three museums decided to share their expertise and collections in order to mount an exhibition, with several pieces also on show from private collections. The show is being housed across all three museums and will be presented in French, German and English.
