Bovet Fleurier
Encyclopedia
Bovet Fleurier SA is a Swiss
brand of luxury watchmaker
s chartered May 1, 1822 in London
, U.K. by Edouard Bovet
. It is most famous for its pocket watches manufactured for the Chinese market in the 19th century. Today it produces high-end artistic watches (priced between US$18,000 and $2.5 million) with a style that references its history, and is known for its high-quality dials (such as the Fleurier Miniature Painting models), engraving, and its seven-day tourbillon
. The original Bovet watches are also famous for being among the first to emphasize the beauty of the movements with their skeletonized views and highly decorative movements. They were also among the first to include a second hand. Bovet has a tradition of employing women artisans, which is rare for traditional watch making companies in Europe. Pascal Raffy is the current owner.
by Daniel-Jean-Jacques-Henri Vaucher, an apprentice of Daniel Jaenrichard, in 1730. At the time the area was known for metal working, a natural result of the iron deposits discovered in the area in the 15th century. Watchmaking flourished in the area in the late 18th century. However, due to the practice of selling production on credit, which was then sold on international markets, and which resulted in the undercutting of prices, and because of the destabilization of the Napoleonic wars
, watch making in Fleurier experienced a huge decrease. By the mid-19th century, Fleurier produced watches almost exclusively for the Chinese market. Fleurier's current fame as a watch making centre is attributed to Bovet watches.
(1797–1849) was the son of the watchmaker Jean-Frederic Bovet. He studied the art with his father in Fleurier, but in 1814 left his home for political reasons with two of his brothers, Alphonse and Frederic, to study watch making in London, U.K. After studying in London for a few years with Ilbury and Magniac, Magniac sent him to Canton, China in 1818. Almost as soon as he arrived he was able to sell four of his watches for the equivalent of USD 1 million in 2008 currency.
. He founded the company for the purpose of manufacturing watches exclusively for the Chinese market. It is guessed by some watch historians that the company was established in London due to the ease of shipping the watches to China on frequent English ships. Edouard's brothers, Alphonse and Frederic, stayed in London to manage the shipping, and another brother, Charles-Henri, managed manufacturing in Fleurier, while Edouard developed the market in Canton.
Bovet was neither the first nor the last company to target the Chinese watch market. They shared it with Ilbury, Jaques Ullmann, and Vacheron Constantin
, among others. In fact, Edouard Bovet discovered the potential of the Chinese market as a student of Ilbery in London, from whom he borrowed some design ideas. But while Vacheron Constantin dominated the market of imperial northern China (since 1820), Bovet dominated that of the more populous southern China. It is said that to this day Bovet continues to have a privileged relationship with China. This 19th century market was predated by a few Jesuit watch makers as early as the 15th century, but by the early 19th century the watch making in China had become of such a low quality that the new European watches were very quickly appreciated.
Bovet watches became so popular in China, notwithstanding their high price, that the company had to contract with other Swiss manufacturers such as Guinand to help them meet the demand. Even though Juvet Fleurier also sold pieces in China, it was not uncommon to see Bovet pieces with a Juvet movement. In the 1830s Bovet established a manufacturing facility in Canton (Guangzhou) as well, but because of the restrictions enforced as a result of the Opium Wars, they had to close that facility and open a smaller one in Macau
. It was about this time that the company created a Chinese name to more effectively market to the middle class. The Chinese name for Bovet, "Bo Wei", became a common noun for watch in China for many years.
The market in China for the watches collapsed around 1855 because of competition from France and the United States, and because there were a tremendous number of Chinese-made counterfeits. By 1864 the problems caused by the exploitative Opium War caused the Bovet family to sell their interest in the company. They sold the company to their manufacturing inspectors in Fleurier, Jules Jequier and Ernest Bobillier, who were soon joined by Ami Leuba.
s, such as the mono rattrapante—a device that would pause the second hand for a reading while the mechanism continued to run. The company Favre-Leuba
purchased the name and manufacturing facilities from the Bovet brothers in 1948.
Favre-Leuba
stopped producing Bovet branded watches in 1950, and then only manufactured its own branded watches from the facilities it acquired from the Bovet brothers. Favre-Leuba sold the Bovet brand and facilities in 1966 to a cooperative of individual watch makers.
purchased Bovet and registered the trademark for "all watchmaking products, mechanical watches and clocks and naval instruments, of Swiss origin", but no Bovet branded timepieces were produced. Parmigiani sold Bovet in 1990 to investors, and Bovet Fleurier SA was established. However, no watches were actually manufactured by the company until after it was acquired by Roger Guye and Thierry Ouelevay in 1994, who opened a branch office in Geneva.
The company was acquired by Pascal Raffy, its current president, on February 6, 2001. In June 2006, Mr. Raffy purchased several manufacturing structures, such as the STT group, which produced complicated watch movements, in order to obtain complete control over the quality of all phases of the watch crafting process. STT was renamed Dimier 1738 Manufacture de Haute Horlogerie Artisanale and went into a full restructuring over the next two years in order to bring the standards up to those of Bovet. The second purchase was a dial and precious gem setting manufacture located in Plan-les-Ouates in Geneva. The name was changed also from Valor, Lopez, et Villa to Dimier 1738 Manufacture Artisanale de Cadrans et de Sertissages. With the same philosophy as the movement factory, Mr. Raffy turned this factory into an artisan center providing dials for Bovet, Dimier's watch brand, and a select group of clients in luxury watchmaking. There are currently about 150 employees of Bovet Fleurier SA and the Dimier manufactures, and the company only produces under 2,000 watches a year. Some modern Bovet watches are fitted with mechanisms manufactured by Vaucher Manufacture, a company that also supplied watches to the Chinese market in the 19th century. Bovet spends very little to advertise and prefers to have private salons for clients instead of attending public fairs. About a third of the watches it manufactures are one-of-a-kind pieces that are made to order.
The original Chinese Bovet watches often fetch more than USD 300,000 for the most decorative models, and more than USD 50,000 for the simpler ones. The simplest metal Chinese watches in moderate condition are usually sold for at least USD 500. Replicas have become increasingly common on the Internet, and while some are the counterfeits produced in China in the 19th century, some more modern counterfeits have also been seen, particularly in markets in Europe and on eBay.
s, or blank movements manufactured by other companies. Initially the signature, or logo, on the dial of the Bovet Freres watches simply had the name of the company in a typical typeface, but in the early 1940s their watches had their stylized logo without the "Freres". When Favre-Leuba
purchased the company, the stylized logo was replaced with simply "Bovet" in normal type, then with a stylized "Bovet". In the transition just before the Favre-Leuba watches no longer used the Bovet brand, watches assembled at the Bovet facility bore the name of both Favre-Leuba and Bovet.
The most commonly used ebauches during this period were those manufactured by Ebauches SA (now ETA, SA), namely the Valjoux and Landeron calibres. The 17 jewel Valjoux 84 lever movement
with stem wind was the most common Valjoux movement for the Bovet chronographs, but sometimes the 77 calibre was also used. The Landeron movements were more varied, which included the 47, 48, 51, 57, 59, 80, 81 calibres, and for the rare date and moonphase models, the Landeron 186 was used. Most of the Bovet Freres watches contained Valjoux movements, while most of the Favre-Leuba watches contained Landeron movements. It has been said that the Valjoux were the better produced of the ebauches, indeed the best at the time, and that over time the Landeron became more common and cheap in quality, and it is said that the poor quality of the Landeron had a negative impact on the Bovet name. These chronographs were produced in large numbers, and are fairly commonly found on the internet for purchase. This was a commercial divergence in the Bovet identity which is unique in the Bovet history, as it is normally known for refined artistic pieces, and not utility.
s, and won awards after its introduction in 1997. Most Bovet watches use this trademark style today. The watches are unique for their high-quality enameling (such as the Fleurier Miniature Painting models), engraving, and a seven-day self-winding tourbillon
. Bovet watches are also unique for the company's tradition of employing women artisans, which is rare for traditional watch making companies in Europe. Some of the limited edition modern Bovet watches can cost more than USD 1 million, and the purchaser of such a watch is usually flown out to the manufacturing facility in Switzerland by the company to witness the production process and meet the artisans.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
brand of luxury watchmaker
Watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since virtually all watches are now factory made, most modern watchmakers solely repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand...
s chartered May 1, 1822 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, U.K. by Edouard Bovet
Edouard Bovet
Edouard Bovet was a Swiss watchmaker and founder of the Bovet watch company.He was born in Fleurier in Neuchâtel, moved to London in 1814 and went on to Canton in 1818 where he set up in business in partnership with his brothers in 1822. The enterprise, that had luxury watches made in Switzerland...
. It is most famous for its pocket watches manufactured for the Chinese market in the 19th century. Today it produces high-end artistic watches (priced between US$18,000 and $2.5 million) with a style that references its history, and is known for its high-quality dials (such as the Fleurier Miniature Painting models), engraving, and its seven-day tourbillon
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
. The original Bovet watches are also famous for being among the first to emphasize the beauty of the movements with their skeletonized views and highly decorative movements. They were also among the first to include a second hand. Bovet has a tradition of employing women artisans, which is rare for traditional watch making companies in Europe. Pascal Raffy is the current owner.
Fleurier, home of Bovet
Watch making was introduced to FleurierFleurier
Fleurier was a municipality in the district of Val-de-Travers in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2009, the former municipalities of Boveresse, Buttes, Couvet, Fleurier, Les Bayards, Môtiers, Noiraigue, Saint-Sulpice and Travers merged to form Val-de-Travers.The Nobel...
by Daniel-Jean-Jacques-Henri Vaucher, an apprentice of Daniel Jaenrichard, in 1730. At the time the area was known for metal working, a natural result of the iron deposits discovered in the area in the 15th century. Watchmaking flourished in the area in the late 18th century. However, due to the practice of selling production on credit, which was then sold on international markets, and which resulted in the undercutting of prices, and because of the destabilization of the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, watch making in Fleurier experienced a huge decrease. By the mid-19th century, Fleurier produced watches almost exclusively for the Chinese market. Fleurier's current fame as a watch making centre is attributed to Bovet watches.
The founder
Edouard BovetEdouard Bovet
Edouard Bovet was a Swiss watchmaker and founder of the Bovet watch company.He was born in Fleurier in Neuchâtel, moved to London in 1814 and went on to Canton in 1818 where he set up in business in partnership with his brothers in 1822. The enterprise, that had luxury watches made in Switzerland...
(1797–1849) was the son of the watchmaker Jean-Frederic Bovet. He studied the art with his father in Fleurier, but in 1814 left his home for political reasons with two of his brothers, Alphonse and Frederic, to study watch making in London, U.K. After studying in London for a few years with Ilbury and Magniac, Magniac sent him to Canton, China in 1818. Almost as soon as he arrived he was able to sell four of his watches for the equivalent of USD 1 million in 2008 currency.
The 19th century: Founding of the company and China
The original Bovet company was founded in London in 1822 by Edouard BovetEdouard Bovet
Edouard Bovet was a Swiss watchmaker and founder of the Bovet watch company.He was born in Fleurier in Neuchâtel, moved to London in 1814 and went on to Canton in 1818 where he set up in business in partnership with his brothers in 1822. The enterprise, that had luxury watches made in Switzerland...
. He founded the company for the purpose of manufacturing watches exclusively for the Chinese market. It is guessed by some watch historians that the company was established in London due to the ease of shipping the watches to China on frequent English ships. Edouard's brothers, Alphonse and Frederic, stayed in London to manage the shipping, and another brother, Charles-Henri, managed manufacturing in Fleurier, while Edouard developed the market in Canton.
Bovet was neither the first nor the last company to target the Chinese watch market. They shared it with Ilbury, Jaques Ullmann, and Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss manufacture of prestige watches and a brand of the Richemont group. Considered by watch enthusiasts to be one of the finest traditional watch makers in the world along with Patek Philippe & Co., Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.It employs around 400 people...
, among others. In fact, Edouard Bovet discovered the potential of the Chinese market as a student of Ilbery in London, from whom he borrowed some design ideas. But while Vacheron Constantin dominated the market of imperial northern China (since 1820), Bovet dominated that of the more populous southern China. It is said that to this day Bovet continues to have a privileged relationship with China. This 19th century market was predated by a few Jesuit watch makers as early as the 15th century, but by the early 19th century the watch making in China had become of such a low quality that the new European watches were very quickly appreciated.
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
. It was about this time that the company created a Chinese name to more effectively market to the middle class. The Chinese name for Bovet, "Bo Wei", became a common noun for watch in China for many years.
The market in China for the watches collapsed around 1855 because of competition from France and the United States, and because there were a tremendous number of Chinese-made counterfeits. By 1864 the problems caused by the exploitative Opium War caused the Bovet family to sell their interest in the company. They sold the company to their manufacturing inspectors in Fleurier, Jules Jequier and Ernest Bobillier, who were soon joined by Ami Leuba.
Into the 20th century: Beyond China
After the virtual close of the Chinese market, Bovet continued to manufacture pocket watches, though at a much reduced rate, and would frequently offer its manufacturing services on a contract basis to other watch companies. The Landry Freres purchased Bovet in 1888 but did not invest in it. In 1901, the Bovet trademark was sold at auction in Paris to Cesar and Charles Leuba, sons of Ami Leuba. Jacques Ullmann and Co., another successful produce of watches for the Chinese market, purchased the Bovet brand in 1918. After Jacques Ullmann went out of business in 1932, the Bovet name was acquired by Albert and Jean Bovet, who were successful watch makers and registered several patents for chronographChronograph
A chronograph is a timepiece or watch with both timekeeping and stopwatch functions as well as other functions. Pocket watch chronographs were produced as early as the 18th century but did not become popular until the 1820s...
s, such as the mono rattrapante—a device that would pause the second hand for a reading while the mechanism continued to run. The company Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba is a Swiss manufacturer of wristwatches based in Le Locle, Switzerland. It was one of the very first watchmaking companies in Switzerland.- History :...
purchased the name and manufacturing facilities from the Bovet brothers in 1948.
Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba is a Swiss manufacturer of wristwatches based in Le Locle, Switzerland. It was one of the very first watchmaking companies in Switzerland.- History :...
stopped producing Bovet branded watches in 1950, and then only manufactured its own branded watches from the facilities it acquired from the Bovet brothers. Favre-Leuba sold the Bovet brand and facilities in 1966 to a cooperative of individual watch makers.
The modern company
In 1989, Parmigiani FleurierParmigiani Fleurier
Parmigiani Fleurier SA is a Swiss brand of luxury watchmakers founded in 1976 in Fleurier, Switzerland by Michel Parmigiani. In 2006, Parmigiani produced the Bugatti 370, a driving watch based on the Bugatti Veyron supercar, which won the 2006 "Watch of the Year Award" from the Japanese...
purchased Bovet and registered the trademark for "all watchmaking products, mechanical watches and clocks and naval instruments, of Swiss origin", but no Bovet branded timepieces were produced. Parmigiani sold Bovet in 1990 to investors, and Bovet Fleurier SA was established. However, no watches were actually manufactured by the company until after it was acquired by Roger Guye and Thierry Ouelevay in 1994, who opened a branch office in Geneva.
The company was acquired by Pascal Raffy, its current president, on February 6, 2001. In June 2006, Mr. Raffy purchased several manufacturing structures, such as the STT group, which produced complicated watch movements, in order to obtain complete control over the quality of all phases of the watch crafting process. STT was renamed Dimier 1738 Manufacture de Haute Horlogerie Artisanale and went into a full restructuring over the next two years in order to bring the standards up to those of Bovet. The second purchase was a dial and precious gem setting manufacture located in Plan-les-Ouates in Geneva. The name was changed also from Valor, Lopez, et Villa to Dimier 1738 Manufacture Artisanale de Cadrans et de Sertissages. With the same philosophy as the movement factory, Mr. Raffy turned this factory into an artisan center providing dials for Bovet, Dimier's watch brand, and a select group of clients in luxury watchmaking. There are currently about 150 employees of Bovet Fleurier SA and the Dimier manufactures, and the company only produces under 2,000 watches a year. Some modern Bovet watches are fitted with mechanisms manufactured by Vaucher Manufacture, a company that also supplied watches to the Chinese market in the 19th century. Bovet spends very little to advertise and prefers to have private salons for clients instead of attending public fairs. About a third of the watches it manufactures are one-of-a-kind pieces that are made to order.
Watches
Legacy of the Bovet style
Bovet watches include much artistic detail, and the company gives the artisans a great deal of independence in creating the elements of the watches, thus encouraging creativity. The Chinese watches were originally sold in pairs in a mahogany box, both for good luck and so that the user would have a back-up watch if one needed repair, as repairs would sometimes take more than six months to complete. The design characteristics of the watch emphasized the elements which appealed to Chinese consumers. One of these appealing characteristics was the mechanics of clocks and watches, and so Bovet emphasized the beauty of the movements with its skeletonized views and highly decorative movements, the first watches to emphasize these characteristics in this way. For the same reason the watches were also among the first to include a second-hand. The enamel decorations were usually of European scenes or plant life, which made the watches more appealing to the Chinese consumers, since such images were as exotic to them as the European-made watches themselves.The original Chinese Bovet watches often fetch more than USD 300,000 for the most decorative models, and more than USD 50,000 for the simpler ones. The simplest metal Chinese watches in moderate condition are usually sold for at least USD 500. Replicas have become increasingly common on the Internet, and while some are the counterfeits produced in China in the 19th century, some more modern counterfeits have also been seen, particularly in markets in Europe and on eBay.
The chronographs
The Bovet branded watches sold by Bovet Freres in the early 1940s (and possibly as early as the 1930s) and by Favre-Leuba from 1948 to 1950 contained a number of ebaucheÉbauche
Ébauche is a term used in art to denote the first preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an oil painting. One early criticism of Impressionist painting was that its practitioners sought to elevate the status of the ébauche to the level of finished painting...
s, or blank movements manufactured by other companies. Initially the signature, or logo, on the dial of the Bovet Freres watches simply had the name of the company in a typical typeface, but in the early 1940s their watches had their stylized logo without the "Freres". When Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba
Favre-Leuba is a Swiss manufacturer of wristwatches based in Le Locle, Switzerland. It was one of the very first watchmaking companies in Switzerland.- History :...
purchased the company, the stylized logo was replaced with simply "Bovet" in normal type, then with a stylized "Bovet". In the transition just before the Favre-Leuba watches no longer used the Bovet brand, watches assembled at the Bovet facility bore the name of both Favre-Leuba and Bovet.
The most commonly used ebauches during this period were those manufactured by Ebauches SA (now ETA, SA), namely the Valjoux and Landeron calibres. The 17 jewel Valjoux 84 lever movement
Movement (clockwork)
In horology, a movement is the internal mechanism of a clock or watch, as opposed to the case, which encloses and protects the movement, and the face which displays the time. The term originated with mechanical timepieces, whose movements are made of many moving parts...
with stem wind was the most common Valjoux movement for the Bovet chronographs, but sometimes the 77 calibre was also used. The Landeron movements were more varied, which included the 47, 48, 51, 57, 59, 80, 81 calibres, and for the rare date and moonphase models, the Landeron 186 was used. Most of the Bovet Freres watches contained Valjoux movements, while most of the Favre-Leuba watches contained Landeron movements. It has been said that the Valjoux were the better produced of the ebauches, indeed the best at the time, and that over time the Landeron became more common and cheap in quality, and it is said that the poor quality of the Landeron had a negative impact on the Bovet name. These chronographs were produced in large numbers, and are fairly commonly found on the internet for purchase. This was a commercial divergence in the Bovet identity which is unique in the Bovet history, as it is normally known for refined artistic pieces, and not utility.
The restoration of the Bovet style
When the company began to make watches again in the 1990s it produced a unique style of watch which incorporated various elements of the pocket watch form in its construction, such as at the lugLug
-Places:* Lug , a Croatian village in Herzegovina* Lug, Bilje, a settlement in Croatian Baranja* Lug, Germany, a municipality in Germany* Ług, Łódź Voivodeship, a village in Poland* Lug , a village in Serbia-Transportation:...
s, and won awards after its introduction in 1997. Most Bovet watches use this trademark style today. The watches are unique for their high-quality enameling (such as the Fleurier Miniature Painting models), engraving, and a seven-day self-winding tourbillon
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
. Bovet watches are also unique for the company's tradition of employing women artisans, which is rare for traditional watch making companies in Europe. Some of the limited edition modern Bovet watches can cost more than USD 1 million, and the purchaser of such a watch is usually flown out to the manufacturing facility in Switzerland by the company to witness the production process and meet the artisans.
External links
- Bovet 1822.
- FinerTimes.com A sample of some of the higher-quality Bovet chronograph watches.
- Antiquorum Lot 203 A photo of a very typical Chinese Bovet pocket watch set from the 19th century.
