LOUIS-BENJAMIN AUDEMARS: HIS LIFE AND WORK  Ref: 3351

This book tells the life story of Louis-Benjamin Audemars and his sons, the most important Swiss watchmakers of the 19th Century. For Louis-Benjamin Audemars and his successors it was not only important to create a perfect and precise watch, but also to develop as many new and different complications as possible, and to integrate them harmoniously into the movements. At many 19th Century World Exhibitions The House of Louis Audemars was rewarded with the highest distinctions for their products. Some of their watches are among the most complicated that have ever been made. The watches of Louis Audemars cannot be bettered by any other watchmaker because of their technical perfection, the beauty and harmony of their movements, cases, dials and hands. They rightly have their place among the great Masterpieces of the watchmaker’s art. The amazing works of this watchmaking dynasty are illustrated by more than 600 illustrations, some larger than life size, of more than 160 watches made by Louis Audemars factory and its successors. Because the Louis Audemars enterprise only existed for 74 years, only produced about 9000 complete watches and went into liquidation in 1885, and because its successor companies only existed for a few decades producing fairly ordinary watches, the watchmaking dynasty of Louis-Benjamin Audemars and its works were allowed to sink into oblivion. In recent decades very few watches by Louis Audemars have surfaced on the open market or at auctions. The descriptions and dates are often wrong and the Louis Audemars brand is relatively unknown, so there is no established basis for valuation. In consequence the watches are sold below their value. Neither dealers, nor collectors are aware of the historical significance, the rarity, the beauty and the high quality of watches from the Louis Audemars factory. For Louis-Benjamin Audemars and his successors it was not only important to create a perfect and precise watch, but also to develop as many new and different complications as possible, and to integrate them harmoniously into the movements. At many 19th Century World Exhibitions The House of Louis Audemars was rewarded with the highest distinctions for their products. Some of their watches are among the most complicated that have ever been made. The watches of Louis Audemars cannot be bettered by any other watchmaker because of their technical perfection, the beauty and harmony of their movements, cases, dials and hands. They rightly have their place among the great Masterpieces of the watchmaker’s art. This book is divided into two parts, narrative and illustrated: The Text section presents the history of the House of Louis-Benjamin Audemars, and of its successor companies, in relation to the development of the watch industry of the 19th century. The illustrated section shows about 170 watches made by the Louis-Benjamin Audemars dynasty, partly in large format pictures, illustrating the technical perfection and the beauty of the timepieces, as well as the decline in the quality of production of the successor companies. The illustrations are - as far as is possible - sorted by the dates of production of the movements or of the finished watches according to the numbering of the watch movements. (Watches with low numbers were often only completed and sold years later). Unfortunately it was not possible to get coloured pictures of all of the famous highly complicated watches because the owners, where known, would not agree to the publication of pictures of their watches. Old black and white pictures from the Audemars family had to be used. For the research for this book, which took many years, the author had to rely on the support of Louis-Benjamin Audemars’ descendants and Audemars family members, and on information he had to collect from museums, collectors, auctioneers and other institutions.