F.P. Journe travels in time with the Historical Anniversary Tourbillon

In honour of thirty years of watchmaking, François-Paul Journe has reproduced as a wristwatch the first ever timepiece, a pocket watch, he invented and made. With its hunter case in guilloche silver and gold, the result is surprisingly up-to-date.

“I wanted to make a tourbillon watch because back in those days, this complication was pretty much unknown,” he recalls. “The only ones in circulation dated from the nineteenth century, and belonged to museums or private collectors. To actually come across a tourbillon was extremely unusual. Quite the opposite of today.” Whereas the original watch features a detent escapement, the T30’s 1412 calibre in gilt brass has a Swiss lever escapement with one-minute tourbillon. Winding and setting is by the crown as opposed to the original watch’s key.

That the case should reprise the gold and silver of its forebear surprises before it seduces the eye. The perfectly regular, concentric guillochage adds to the singularity of this piece. “The original case borrowed characteristics from nineteenth-century pocket chronometers in its combination of silver and gold, gold being a rare and costly metal then.” The grained silver dial is in the style of French marine chronometers of the eighteenth century, with the addition of Breguet hands. An association of elements which proves that, as Journe himself observes, “I’d yet to find my style.”