Jaquet Droz Automates and Merveilles Exhibition

Jaquet Droz watch manufacture is named after the Pierre Jaquet Droz, a Swiss watchmaker of late eighteenth century. This skilful gentleman had a unique talent to build animated dolls, also known as automata, which have been used as some kind of attraction for potential buyers of his watches and delicate mechanical birds. These complex mechanisms were extremely popular even among the nobility of those times and fascinated the rulers from all around the world including Europe, China, India and Japan.

Now after many years, the famous automata are on display again - the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel, the Musée international d’horlogerie de La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Musée d’horlogerie du Locle-Château des Monts came together to present an exhibition on three outstanding masters of 18th-century clock-making: Pierre Jaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis and their colleague Jean-Frédéric Leschot.



The exhibition offers a selection of remarkable objects made by the hand of these master-crafters: pieces of jewelry, miniatiruzied mechanisms, musical clocks, singing birds and humanoid automata. The Automates & merveilles exhibition will be held in all three institutions from April, 28th to September, 30th 2012 and presented simultaneously in three languages – French, German and English. Each institution will present one aspect of Jacquet Droz heritage:

• NEUCHATEL, Musée d’art et d’histoire: the Jaquet-Droz family and Leschot
  
• LA CHAUX-DE-FONDS, Musée international d’horlogerie: Marvellous movements….amazing mechanisms
  
• LE LOCLE, Musée d’horlogerie – Château des Monts: Masterpieces of luxury and miniaturization

Author: Marina Milojević
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