Jacques-Frédéric Houriet

Jacques-Frédéric Houriet, No. 61, made for Berthoud Frères, circa 1820. Highly important, exquisitely made and very rare 18K rose gold pocket chronometer with one-minute tourbillon regulator, spring detent chronometer escapement, free-sprung gold spherical balance spring, regulator dial, and Réaumur thermometer. Four-body, massive, “bassine et filets”, engine-turned, gold hinged cuvette with winding aperture, inscribed with details of the movement. White enamel, small radial Roman hour chapter at 10 o’clock, central minutes with outer divisions and five-minute Arabic markers, Réaumur thermometer sector at 6, subsidiary seconds at 2 o’clock. Notes Jacques-Frédéric Houriet 1743-1830 Was a remarkable horologist. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Daniel Gagnebin, at Renan, and later to the celebrated Abraham-Louis Perrelet, the inventor of the self-winding watch. In 1759, at the age of sixteen, he and his elder brother, an engraver, moved to Paris. There he worked for Pierre LeRoy, Jean Romilly and Ferdinand Berthoud. Tradition has it that while in Paris he became friendly with Breguet, four years his junior. Houriet remained in Paris for nine years and returned to Le Locle full of ideas and ambitions which were to have a profound effect on Neuchâtel valley horology. Along with his brother-in-law David Courvoisier, Houriet established a company that he directed for forty years. Shortly after his return to Le Locle, Jürgen Jürgensen came from Copenhagen to work for him, later