A Voyage Through Time

The Masis Collection is one of the most comprehensive privately owned assemblages of pocket watches in the world. Focusing on the watch as a work of art, it encompasses over four hundred years of the watchmakers, enamellers and goldsmiths craft. This lavishly illustrated book takes the reader not only on a journey through the development of the mechanical watch, but for the first time, shows the artistic progression of watch case decoration in the fashionable styles that walked hand in hand with wider European artistic movements. Beginning with some of the earliest surviving portable timepieces, the Masis Collection includes watches that can be considered among the greatest European miniature works of art to ever be created.

The collection is particularly rich in examples of gloriously painted Geneva enamels, particularly those of the Huaud family working in the baroque period. Its strength also lies in the breathtakingly beautiful enamel watches made for export to China and Turkey in the early years of the 19th century. This book aims to inform the reader not only of the richness and diversity of the Masis collection itself but to adequately display some of the watchmaking masterpieces that have enthralled their owners down the centuries.

About the Author

Richard Chadwick is one of the most renowned watch specialists in Europe and a consultant to Christie's Geneva. His career began over 30 years ago in the Clock and Watch Department of Sotheby's in London. In 1994, Richard joined Christie's London, where he became head of department and was widely recognised as a pioneer in the development and promotion of specialist watch auctions. With a particular knowledge of pocket watches and traditional watchmaking, in 2015, he was chosen by Vacheron Constantin to describe for its public unveiling, the Reference 57260, the most complicated watch in the world.