Jewelry Gallery, April 21 - September 15, 2012

During the second half of the nineteenth century, profound changes occurred in the production and commercialisation of watches. A combination of many factors—scientific, economic, political, technological and industrial—gave rise to the development of gunmetal watches.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, only three types of watches were produced: expensive, luxury watches; those for scientific or professional use; and ordinary watches. Expensive watches were made of elaborately chased precious metals, embellished with enamel decoration, set with precious stones, or fitted with a complicated movement. Those were usually produced for an elite clientele in very small series—and often as one-of-a-kind pieces—by jeweller-craftsmen or highly skilled watchmakers.

Ordinary watches tended to be produced in large cities such as Paris, London or Geneva. Generally made of silver, the most common types were those produced in the Swiss or French High Jura by workers with little training (mostly farmers who were obliged to seek other employment during eight months of the year). The pieces they produced were sent to large centers such as Neuchâtel or Geneva, where they were assembled and finished.

As the price of steel fell, it gradually replaced iron in most industrial applications. It was used in the making of railroad rails and in the building of ships, factories, and private homes, as well as in precision mechanics and in horology, in particular.

Gunmetal watches, made of burnished steel, developed shortly after the war of 1870, and their production constantly grew thereafter due to the extremely high cost of gold watches. In 1907, a gold watch weighing 30 grams was sold for the price of 320 francs, while the same watch in steel or nickel destined for a rural clientele was worth only 42 francs. Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, is lighter, harder, and more stable than iron. The treatment for burnished steel involved chemically treating the steel with a gas or a liquid, transforming its surface into an inalterable ferrous oxide that was black-brown in colour.

Before the mid-nineteenth century, watches tended to be owned by the wealthy. Gradually, however, the use of the watch became general in all classes of society, which led to the industrial production of the “proletarian watch” as early as 1868. This production was also greatly encouraged by the growth of the French metal industry, resulting in the development of new methods of production and treatment of steel. At the same time, further progress was made in the melting of steel, and it began to be used in the construction of viaducts and bridges.

Steel made a dramatic entrance into the modern world with the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1885, and then with the building of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. Thus the metal became both familiar to and widely accepted by the general population. From that time forward, the only watches produced were round or square, with the occasional rare form watch in the shape of a lyre or a horseshoe.

Image: Double face world time watch marked Hora Universa. Ø 55mm