So Jaquet Droz almost casually dropped this on us. On the occasion of its 280th anniversary, amid the many commemorative timepieces trhat include the amazing Tropical Bird Repeater and one of our favourite wristwatches of 2018, the Grande Seconde Skelet-One, the watchmaker announced that it has yet another horological knock-out up its sleeves – a newly restored automaton clock made by Jaquet Droz himself, possibly more than 250 years ago.
IS IT FOR REAL?
Of course, it is! The back plate of the clock bears the unmistakable inscription: ‘P. Jaquet Droz A La Chaux de Fonds’. Elsewhere, the clock’s wooden cabinet was confirmed to be made of spruce wood from 1754 using tree-ring dating analysis, a year that places it firmly around the time of the height of Droz’s prowess. (He was born in 1721 and passed in 1790.) And not to mention the small matter of the insane engineering that went into the construction of the singing bird automaton, of which Droz was the man to be wholly capable of.