THE WATCH A TWENTIETH CENTURY STYLE HISTORY THE WATCH A TWENTIETH CENTURY STYLE HISTORY ALEXANDER BARTER PRESTEL MUNICH • LONDON • NEW YORK CONTENTS ABOVE Detail of movement backplate of an Audemars Piguet, made in 1912. A platinum open-faced keyless lever watch with minute repetition (cal. 9½ SMV #61) Diameter 25 mm FOREWORD The journey of the twentieth-century watch is one that says as Indeed, many Swiss watch companies and thousands of jobs much about the collective need to know time as it does about one’s disappeared entirely in the fallout of what became known as the personality or social position. From the very beginnings of the ‘quartz crisis’. Yet all was not lost, and thanks to the determination watch more than five hundred years ago, its aesthetic style and of certain key players, other watch houses would be born, reborn or form has been almost as important as the mechanics within. Time successfully amalgamated and reorganised to ensure their futures. and our ever growing need to know it, to possess it, to capture and, A few of the most famous and historic watch houses would emerge yes, even if possible to stop it, never grows old. from the crisis bruised but ultimately more resilient – following a Two hundred years ago the ownership of a watch was largely period of reflection and recalibration, it became clear that demand restricted to the wealthy. However, new mass-production techniques for and marketing of the fine watch depended on the continued use developed during the second half of the nineteenth century brought of mechanical rather than quartz movements. about a democratisation of the watch that placed it within reach of In the immediate aftermath of the quartz crisis, appreciation of the wider population. Such advances had coincided with the vintage wristwatches began to grow in an unprecedented way. expansion of the railways and socio-economic changes that meant Suddenly, pocket watch collectors who had once spurned vintage accurate time-telling was increasingly of importance to the general wristwatches translated their knowledge of the field into the public. At the start of the twentieth century, the pocket watch was the foundation of a new distinct collecting category. Driven partly by only common form of portable timekeeper, but the realities of modern nostalgia and partly by what appeared to be the end of a horological warfare would soon render the pocket watch all but obsolete, chapter, this new enthusiasm for the vintage wristwatch in turn superseded by a more practical means of telling time: the wristwatch. engendered an explosion of interest among the wider public, Wristwatches are very personal objects; worn on the body rather further fuelling the collector’s market. In the early 1980s auction than concealed in a pocket, they have a connection with their owner houses such as Sotheby’s began to devote entire sections of their and, at the same time, are exposed for all to see. Having proved watch auctions to the sale of wristwatches, and within a few short themselves practical in the trenches of the First World War, in the years the market matured. The success enjoyed by the vintage years that followed, watchmakers were quick to recognise the market spread to contemporary makers, inspiring them to achieve marketing potential that this new form of mass-market timepiece heights of design and quality that helped lead to an overall market could offer. The 1920s and ’30s would be a period of extraordinary renaissance in the last two decades of the twentieth century. experimentation and development that would witness a range of The mechanical watch’s renaissance not only benefited existing new styles and forms appear. An entrepreneurial spirit mixed with brands, but it also led to the establishment of new independent an advanced and highly organised industry ensured that the Swiss watchmakers who were buoyed by the growth in demand for fine quickly came to dominate the manufacture of high-end and innovative mechanical timepieces. First and foremost among wristwatches, to the detriment of their counterparts in Britain and the independents was the English maker George Daniels. Daniels America. Developments were not led solely by trends in fashion; believed that he could create a new type of mechanical movement, the two world wars would also impact watch design and influence one that could take on the quartz watch. The result was the co-axial civilian-issue watches of later years. In a similar way, technological escapement. Daniels worked for more than twenty years to gain and stylistic elements that were developed for specific users or acceptance for his device, eventually achieving the first successful tasks – whether for aviators or astronauts, mountaineers or divers commercialization of a new escapement in over two hundred years. – would in turn influence the design and production of watches for Daniels eventually sold his patented design to Omega, who everyday use. launched their first line of co-axial watches in 1999. Such was In the fifty-year period that followed the end of the First World Daniels’s genius and tenacity that he would inspire a new War, the Swiss enjoyed an almost unbroken and unprecedented generation of talented watchmakers. period of growth and prosperity. However, this would come to an The twentieth century was a period of dramatic, fast-paced end during the 1970s as vast numbers of inexpensive, highly change in many arenas and an era in which the watch was accurate electronic quartz watches from Japan and America began transformed into almost every conceivable shape and form. Decade to flood the international market, seemingly heralding the death of by decade, this book reveals the fascinating story of the stylistic the mechanical watch. By the early 1980s, speculation was rampant development of the most personal of timekeepers, the watch. in Switzerland about the demise of the Swiss mechanical watch. Most sobering was the rumour that the Swiss would destroy the DARYN SCHNIPPER machinery necessary to manufacture mechanical mechanisms and CHAIRMAN, SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL would instead install the technology required to make quartz WATCH DIVISION movements. 6 FOREWORD LO-RES 1900 –1909 THE 1900s The proliferation of the classically styled pocket watch of made of paper. As a consequence of the sheer volume of BELOW , LEFT Waltham, c. 1908. the early 1900s has rather unfairly tarnished the general production during the last quarter of the nineteenth A gold filled, open-faced keyless lever watch perception of this period as one of plain design that century, survival rates of the ‘textbook’ pocket watch from Diameter 51.5 mm occasionally verges towards the dour. By the last quarter this era are far higher than any previous period. The fact of the nineteenth century, the successful mass production that a large proportion of these follow similar forms and BELOW , RIGHT Breguet, c. 1900. of cheap yet reliable watches by firms such as Roskopf in styles has certainly gone a long way to colour the way in A silver and niello half-hunting cased Switzerland had, for the first time, placed the portable which we think about the watch of 1900 [image 996]. lever watch timepiece within the grasp of almost all members of Yet the watch has always been a diverse creature, never Diameter 51 mm society.1 Mass production techniques developed in the immune to the influence of changing fashions. At the OPPOSITE Patek Philippe, sold in 1902. United States had also greatly increased availability; by luxury end of the market, watchmakers had collaborated A silver open-faced keyless lever watch, 1886, for example, Elgin of Illinois were manufacturing a for centuries with enamellers and jewellers to produce the case back chased and engraved with thousand watch movements per day.2 Meanwhile, timepieces of exceptional beauty. No period of irises, daffodils and a dragonfly Waltham, that great behemoth of American watchmaking could be unaffected by the influence of the Diameter 51 mm watchmaking, was developing precision making decorative arts, and it is therefore unsurprising that the techniques which would go on to be adapted and adopted impact of the Belle Époque and Art Nouveau filgered into by factories in Switzerland, Japan and England.3 In the watch designs of the early 1900s. [image 595] addition to higher quality watches, from the late 1870s, Niello work (see fig XXX) [image 870], chasing and some American manufacturers began producing engraving and a wide range of decorative enamel so-called ‘dollar’4 watches, their movement plates techniques were used during this period. The use of stamped out of sheet metal and their dials frequently translucent enamel was especially popular and this was CUT OUT CUT OUT 10 THE WATCH THE 1900s 11 often applied above an engine-turned gold case back to represented by pearls, and the decoration continues BELOW Omega, made in 1905. form impressive, wave like patterns which added a sense across the case to include the original matching brooch A yellow gold and enamel open-faced lever watch of depth and grandeur to a watch. Figure XXX [image to which the watch is attached. Diameter 51 mm 873] shows an Omega watch made in 1905 which has a Traditional decorative techniques that had been used case back composed of concentrically chased and for decades continued to be employed within ornamental OPPOSITE Patek Philippe, made in 1900 engraved borders of olive branches that naturalistically schemes. During the first decade of the twentieth and retailed by Critzer Bros. of San overlap the solid green enamel ring that separates them. century, for example, the English watchmakers Jump & Antonio, Texas. Surrounding the central medallion, and framed by solid Sons created some exceptionally beautiful pocket watches An 18 ct yellow gold, enamel and pearl-set pendant lever watch with white enamel borders, a turquoise enamel has been that paid homage to the style Abraham-Louis Breguet mistletoe motif and matching brooch applied over an engine-turned ground.