THE AUDEMARS PIGUET MUSEUM
ACQUIRES A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF
MASTERPIECES
ACQUIRES A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF
MASTERPIECES
The Audemars Piguet Museum has recently acquired the Time Products vintage watch collection of Audemars Piguet timepieces. This is the most significant private collection of Audemars Piguet vintage watches worldwide and it was put together over 27 years by Marcus Margulies. The widely diverse creations have been meticulously selected and curated over time before returning home to Le Brassus this year.
Spanning from the 1890s through the 1990s, the collection features extremely rare examples from every category of collectible vintage Audemars Piguet watches: complicated pocket watches, time only wristwatches with exotic case and dial designs, unique calendar wristwatches with phases of the moon, world-time wristwatches, influential jump hour wristwatches, and exceptional chronograph and minute repeating wristwatches.
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The Universelle
Among this inspiring collection is the renowned ultra-complicated pocket watch no 6142, called the “Universelle”. Louis Elisée Piguet first worked on the ebauche and then Audemars Piguet finished the movement and delivered it in 1899 to the company Union Glashutte in Dresden who cased, signed and sold the watch. This masterpiece, one of the most complicated watches of its time, includes 1168 movement parts and features the following: perpetual calendar, minute repeater with carillon, Grande & Petite Sonnerie, split second chronograph, flying 1/5ths of a second with reset system, dead beat seconds and alarm mechanism. This exceptional work of engineering, technology and watchmaking artisanship will be at the heart of the current and future Audemars Piguet Museum.
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The Universelle Dial
In addition to being on view at the Museum in Le Brassus and in the future Maison des Fondateurs, highlights from this collection will be part of traveling exhibitions and future publications throughout the world.
Jasmine Audemars, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors, said: «This acquisition is the most important in the history of the Audemars Piguet Heritage collection thanks to the incredible quality of the pieces representing a high concentration of major historical achievements for the brand.”
François-Henry Bennahmias, Chief Executive Officer of Audemars Piguet, added: “We are delighted to welcome these vintage pieces back home. It represents a great milestone for the heritage department and a huge contribution to our patrimony. Marcus Margulies is very happy, as he has always believed that the right home for the Collection was with the factory in Le Brassus.”
“To break the rules you must first master them.”
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About the Audemars Piguet Museum
Audemars Piguet, the only fine watchmaking brand still in the hands of its founding families, inaugurated its first Museum in 1992 in the original Audemars family home next to the tourbillon workshop, before expanding it to the entire building in 2004. The collection spans 250 years of history. The Audemars Piguet Museum provides research, certification, as well as restoration and conservation for historic Audemars Piguet watches to collectors and auction houses. In 2014, Audemars Piguet selected the BIG architectural firm to extend its historic building and create the new building of its museum, the "Maison des Fondateurs", which will relate the story of Audemars Piguet through a dynamic interweaving of past and present. The opening of the new Maison des Fondateurs is planned for 2018.
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Audemars Piguet (Marketing) SA
Route de France 16 - Case postale 16
1348 Le Brassus - Switzerland
Phone : + 41 21 642 39 00
Fax : + 41 21 642 34 02
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