As a watch collector, you may be familiar with the name Louis Moinet. He is the watchmaker who invented the chronograph, and the brand that bears his name is exhibiting at Montres et Merveilles Geneva. On the other hand, Moinet is neither Abraham-Louis Breguet nor Adrienne Philippe, and no great workshop called Louis Moinet has ever graced Paris or Geneva. Just over ten years ago, the talents of this French watchmaker, artist and scholar might have been unknown to you. Indeed, with regard to this period, some of you may remember that the Salon international de la haute horlogerie in Geneva made a big deal of another French watchmaker, the relatively famous Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec…
Rieussec was already on the books as the inventor of the chronograph in 1822, and his life was better known than that of Moinet, given that he was on the register of watchmakers active in Paris as early as 1810. In 2012, no one even knew the birthplace of Moinet, but a change was coming that would forever upset the other dominant order in watchmaking. “We said, from the Jura where we were, hello, excuse us, but a page is missing in the history of watchmaking,” said Jean-Marie Schaller, CEO and Creative Director of Les Ateliers Louis. Moinet SA.
Schaller is referring here to a series of events that confirmed the fundamental facts of the original invention of the chronograph by Moinet. If you haven’t heard this story, it’s worth listening to. Although we know the story well, it was amazing to hear it again from Schaller when he was recently in Singapore to celebrate his brand’s exclusive sales deal with Sincere at MBS’ SHH boutique. . Anyway, we remember being very shocked by the fact that Moinet created in 1816 a real chronometer capable of measuring elapsed time down to 1/60th.th of a second. To set the context, the Rieussec chronograph was accurate to the nearest second, which was more than enough at the beginning of the 19th century.th century.
This raises a few questions: what is Les Ateliers Louis Moinet? Is it related to the watchmaker Louis Moinet? And who is Jean-Marie Schaller? First of all, the contemporary company was founded in 2004 by Schaller, a Swiss from Delemont in the Jura who has no connection with Moinet. A few other names appear before the connection between Moinet and Schaller is established. In one way or another, it’s all connected to Schaller’s love of travel. It might be scratching your head, but for those familiar with Swiss watchmaking, there’s nothing particularly mysterious about it.
It all starts with another great watchmaker, Breguet, who has himself experienced many tumultuous episodes. Although we are talking about the Breguet watch firm, there is a place here for Abraham-Louis himself. Alright, we can feel you’re eyeing us with daggers, but we promise you this all makes sense.
Long story short, when the Chaumet brothers acquired Breguet, they also got their hands on the archives and all kinds of historical documents. It’s Breguet, a name that evokes the history of watchmaking, after all. To see more clearly, the brothers called on a renowned watchmaker, Daniel Roth. Yes, this Daniel Roth, the watchmaker whose brand was developed in Asia by the trading company Siber Hegner SA. Schaller got his start in watchmaking at Siber Hegner, and was responsible for growing the Daniel Roth watch brand.
“I started with the Louis Moinet project in 2000. It started as a laboratory, working at home with my wife, next to the kitchen, which seems to be a habit in this industry,” Schaller told Monochrome last year.
“In a way, I didn’t look for Louis Moinet. It was Louis Moinet who looked for me. It’s a strange feeling, but it was my fate. The name was completely forgotten, but people kept telling me about it, especially Daniel Roth.”
“Jean-Marie, this name (Louis Moinet) must interest you, it is intended for you,“ Roth told Schaller.
If this all sounds like wishful thinking, remember that Louis Moinet’s historic accomplishments are all too real. The watchmaker himself wrote a book called “Traité d’Horlogerie”, which Elizabeth Doer of QP notes was known to eminent specialists such as Dr Ludwig Oeschlin, Arnaud Tellier and Dominique Flechon. This work describes a watch known as the Compteur de Tierces, which was the culmination of Moinet’s ambitions. In fact, Moinet worked on this watch while living with Abraham-Louis Breguet, which Roth discovered while working on the archives. Moinet and Abraham-Louis worked at the same address from 1815 to 1823.
The Counter of Tierces, begun in 1815 and completed a year later, solidifies a link between the masters. This is how Moinet describes it in a letter: “I came to Paris in 1815 for the sole purpose of designing and building a Tierces compactor. thirds counter. The difficult and seldom attempted realization of this instrument of a new construction, achieved my goal in a very satisfactory way”.
This watch actually exists, and was sold at a Christie’s auction in 2012; the hallmarks inside the watch attest to its production history. Curiously, Doer notes that Tellier wrote the lot notes for the watch, which had a disappointing estimate: CHF 5,000. Schaller won it in a fierce bidding battle, taking the price an order of magnitude higher than estimated. The Compteur de Tierces is the watch that proved that Louis Moinet was indeed the inventor of the chronograph, as verified by the aforementioned experts but also by other people working in the field of auctions. This was the big watchmaking news of 2013, and the Compteur de Tierces was also going to figure prominently in Louis Moinet’s future.
This brings us back to the status of the contemporary brand Louis Moinet, which Schaller built from scratch and which today produces some 500 exceptional watches a year. 500 watches doesn’t sound like much until the word exceptional is said. Schaller started his journey wanting to save a watchmaker from obscurity, and having succeeded, he has no intention of spoiling things by offering coy and lukewarm timepieces.
Looking at the contemporary watches on offer here, you are sure to be impressed. By examining any Louis Moinet watch at the SHH boutique, you will find four symbols that the brand uses to express its values: uniqueness, creativity, artistry and exclusivity. Louis Moinet focuses today on two pillars: Cosmic Art and Mechanical Marvels. Interestingly, Cosmic Art may seem far removed from Monet’s work, but Monet invented the Compteur de Tierces to time astronomical events or celestial phenomena, not really anything on earth. The connection to the Mechanical Marvels is obvious, but we must pause to note that the Compteur de Tierces was a high-pace watch, whose escapement beat at the incredible speed of 216,000 vph, or 30 Hz. Such dizzying speeds were indeed possible at the time, for exceptional watchmakers like Moinet. This is the spirit that animates the Louis Moinet brand.
This is not to say that Schaller reveled in Louis Moinet’s inner abilities, nor that he elevates himself by association. The Louis Moinet brand openly lists its suppliers, in a way that is both refreshing for the Swiss and perhaps surprising. If you ask Schaller why he made this decision, when so many brands (large and small) boast that they have it all in-house, he is silent for a moment before simply answering “because it’s not true (that brands can do it all in-house)”. For Schaller, the important thing is to find the right partners to execute his vision, because Louis Moinet is a series of workshops, literally (Les Ateliers), and the Swiss tradition of working with specialist suppliers is an important part of the watchmaking. He notes that his partners, including movement maker Concepto and case maker FIMM, are bound by confidentiality agreements not to reveal who they work for, but that Louis Moinet does not require it. The fact that Moinet himself was obscured by history for so long may have influenced Schaller’s thought process.
We don’t have space to go into all of the contemporary brand’s key references, but you’d do well to head to the SHH boutique at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore (Louis Moinet has an exclusive relationship with Sincere Fine Watches in Singapore) and search for the previously mentioned hallmarks. Imagine yourself in Schaller’s shoes, looking at the hallmarks of the Counter of Thirds for clues to its history. This remains the key to understanding the emotional power of Louis Moinet.
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