Journee a Paris — A day in Paris
The latest creation by Van Cleef & Arpels illustrates their ability to successfully combine high jewelry within the precision of a complicated watch.  This new time piece is a journey through the “City of Lights.”  

The moving dial takes us to the Tuileries Jardin, ile de la Cite, avenue Montaigne, ending at the Opera and Place Vendome.  An onyx disc on the dial is the stationary background while seven feminine silhouettes with a child stroll carefree through Paris in a twenty four hour rhythm of time. Appearing magically from the mother of pearl dial each emerge in turn and disappear – only to return twenty four hours later. 

For more information visit the Van Cleef & Arpels Website

Janet Deleuse

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Mystery, intrigue and luxury are associated with the name Marie Antoinette. 

In April 2008 Breguet presented the reproduction of the famous "Marie Antoinette watch".  The same year the original watch was found since it was stolen from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem in 1983.

One of the most famous and complicated watches created by Breguet was commissioned by the French queen Marie Antionette and was not completed until after her death.  Abraham Louis Breguet, the founder of Breguet watches and watchmaker to Napoleon, developed a watch for the queen that was so technical it remains today one of the most important and technically advanced watches made. The dial is made of transparent rock crystal, it has a self winding mechanism with a perpetual calendar and featured a thermometer. This was an innovative idea for watchmaking at that time.

In 2005 the president of Breguet, Mr. Hayek, made the decision to recreate the then missing Marie Antoinette watch.  Breguet's talented and skilled watchmakers were able to manufacture the watch based on photographs and sketches from the archives using the same metals. The reproduction was completed in 2007.

The original Marie Antoinette pocket watch has been returned to the L.A. Mayer Museum since it's recovery.

Janet Deleuse 

Posted October 9, 2009 Click here to see the final watch replicated made by hand, on tour.