The Griffin Patek, Philippe & Co, Geneva, N° 860’163 Open-face keyless-winding dress-watch - Cloisonné enamel décor - 1937.

PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM

The first floor (I) :

THE PATEK PHILIPPE COLLECTION

From 1839 to the present day

Watches had existed for almost three centuries and a half when the Polish Count Antoine Norbert de Patek founded the future watchmaking firm of Patek Philippe with his fellow countryman, François Czapek, in Geneva in 1839. In just a few years, with the arrival of a new partner, the talented French horologist, Adrien Philippe, in 1845, the Geneva firm acquired a reputation for excellence. Through 163 years of uninterrupted production it has built on that reputation, which continues to flourish. The PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM retraces the history of the most creative watchmaking firm of our times, a history filled with technical and aesthetic innovations and illustrated by over 1000 exceptional timepieces.

Patek and Czapek, two Polish exiles
In 1831, following an uprising that was severely repressed by the Russian occupation, Poland lost all independence and thousands of patriots left the country. Amongst them was Count Antoine Norbert de Patek, a young cavalry officer who took refuge in Geneva, where he set up business in 1832 dealing in fine watches. This passionate connoisseur of the fine arts joined up seven years later with his friend and fellow countryman, horologist François Czapek, and founded the watch manufacturing firm of Patek, Czapek & Cie. As one might expect, the top-quality timepieces produced by the two refugees were noticeably influenced by Polish culture, mythology and history.

The most patriotic works by Patek, Czapek & Cie (1839-1845) and by Patek & Cie (1845-1851) include a stem-winding hunter watch adorned with miniature portraits on enamel of General Kosciusko, a leading figure of the Polish resistance, and Prince Poniatowski, who fought with Napoleon (1848, Inv. P-898). Polish Christianity is the subject of many pieces with religious themes, such as a miniature hunter-cased pendant watch from 1850, sold to Marie II of Bragança, queen of Portugal; and presenting an allegory of the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity) in a miniature painting on enamel by Lamunière (Inv. P-29).

Adrien Philippe inventor of the stem-winding system
In Paris in 1844, Antoine Norbert de Patek met the man who would become his next business associate. The French horologist, Adrien Philippe, was there to attend the great French industrial exhibition, where he presented a revolutionary device: an integrated system for winding and setting a watch without a separate key. Impressed by this innovative flair, Patek proposed that he join the watchmaking firm, of which he became joint partner upon Czapek's departure in 1845.The two founders of the Patek Philippe firm shared a common goal: to create the world's finest timepieces. This ambition was so apparent in their work that one of the firm's first keyless watches won the heart of Queen Victoria at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851.

Open-face pendant watch no. 4536 was offered to Queen Victoria, who would later be known as the " grandmother of Europe ". The story goes that the glorious blue of its enamel work, exactly the same colour as that of her eyes, charmed the Queen quite as much the technical beauty of its patented stem-winding system (1850, Inv. P-24).

Patek Philippe, watchmaker to leaders
Queen Victoria was far from being the only influential figure to conceive an imperative desire for a Patek Philippe timepiece. As emblems of all that was finest in horology, the Geneva firm's timepieces attracted numerous crowned heads and faithfully accompanied some of the greatest minds of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Intellectuals, explorers, musicians, philosophers, writers and poets shared their passion with wealthy collectors, heads of State and business leaders, all of whom wished to possess an object of art and science of such outstanding technical and aesthetic worth.

In displaying the " historical timepieces " that shared the lives of eminent figures, the PATEK PHILIPPE MUSEUM reveals an intimate facet of Leo Tolstoy and Rudyard Kipling, Richard Wagner and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein,and other epic figures of intellectual and political life during the past two centuries. One discovers, for example, the open-face pocket chronometer, its movement protected by an anti-magnetic inner shield of soft iron (1926, Inv. P-120), that accompanied the American polar explorer, Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, on his Antarctic expeditions.

From Art Nouveau...
At the end of the nineteenth century an art noveau emerged in Europe, refusing the prevailing technical hierarchy, and defending the noble status of the decorative arts. Under its influence, furniture, paintings, and objects drew on a wide range of decorative techniques. Their scrolls and sinuous curves, inspired by the plant world, were highlighted by the most precious materials. Taking their example from the glass-worker, the goldsmith and the jeweller, whose professions soared at this time, watchmakers paid tribute to this new source of inspiration, the graceful forms of Nature.

Typical of the period is the " rhinoceros scarab and trumpet flowers " hunter-cased, stem-winding pocket watch with push-piece operated minute repeater. This watch, which was sold on May 16th 1900 by Patek, Philippe & Cie was redecorated in polychrome champlevé enamels in the purest Art Nouveau style by the French jewellery designer, René Lalique

...to Art Deco
Art Nouveau had wilted by the end of the First World War. Its place was taken by Art Deco, inspired by the bold geometry of the avant-garde cubists, futurists and constructivists, which expressed a fascination for speed, energy and pure colour. The search for functional simplicity was accompanied by a marked preference for new materials. Chromium and Bakelite entered the watchmaker's workshop, together with hard stone, horn and ivory.

The geometric flair of the Art Deco style is embodied in this octagonal dress watch by Patek, Philippe & Cie, whose black onyx case is centred with a sardonyx cameo ( 1923, Inv. P-103).

The " Chronometro Gondolo "
In Brazil, the early twentieth century saw the opening of a most unusual Patek Philippe Club. From 1902 to around 1930, its members, all keen enthusiasts of fine horology, drew lots for the " Chronometro Gondolo ", purchased by weekly lottery installments of ten dollars placed by each member for seventy-nine weeks.This highly original version of lottery-selling was devised by Maison Gondolo & Labouriau, distributors in Rio. Patek Philippe enjoyed such renown in the region ( as it did everywhere in Latin America) that when referring to a watch, the local inhabitants simply called it " a Patek ". Over a period of thirty years, the Chronometro Gondolo acquired many different personalities.

An open-face stem-winding Chronometro Gondolo pocket watch from 1925 has a stunning double twenty-four-hour dial, with two chapter rings (Inv. P-1187).