Ancient water clocks, the astronomical devices of the Enlightenment and Empire mantle clocks — the collections of the Louvre trace humanity’s enduring fascination with time and the skies.
Among those artifacts now stands a modern astronomical clock and automaton, a new creation by the Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin. The monumental timepiece, titled La Quête du Temps (in English, the Quest of Time), is 3.5 feet tall, weighs 550 pounds and serves as the centerpiece of “Mécaniques d’Art,” an exhibition on view through Nov. 12 in the museum’s Decorative Arts department.
“La Quête du Temps is the result of seven years of work that has brought to life a remarkable ‘mécanique d’art’ that unites humanity and the universe,” Laurent Perves, the chief executive of Vacheron Constantin, said at the timepiece’s unveiling last month.
The one-of-a-kind piece is being displayed among 10 historic timekeepers from the Louvre’s collections, including France’s oldest signed clock, from 1551; and a clock from 1754 called Pendule de La Création du Monde, which was restored in 2016 with Vacheron Constantin’s support.
“We have often brought contemporary creations in art, craft and design into the museum,” Olivier Gabet, the director of the Department of Decorative Arts, said in an interview. “They allow visitors to reflect on the connections between them. Time is a universal theme here, and visitors come to discover different kinds of masterpieces.”
La Quête is the latest chapter in the watchmaker’s partnership with the museum, begun in 2019, and broadened in 2023 to include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The timepiece, which marks the brand’s 270th anniversary, has three sections: a dome over the automaton figure, an astronomical clock and a base.
Under a transparent half-sphere painted with a starry sky, the bronze automaton named the Astronomer indicates the time through 144 different arm and body positions. Its shape was inspired by the futuristic beings in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1956 novel, “The City and the Stars,” according to Alexia Steunou, who contributed to the design. She is a senior designer at Les Cabinotiers, Vacheron Constantin’s special orders department.
The mechanism animating the figure, developed by François Junod, a master automaton maker, is housed in the timepiece’s base. A lever activates the Astronomer’s 90-second choreography, which is set to three melodies composed by Yoann Lemoine, the French musician also known as Woodkid. The case was developed in collaboration with L’Épée 1839, the high-end Swiss clockmaker.
“Automatons usually only add a decorative animation to a clock,” said Christian Selmoni, Vacheron Constantin’s Style and Heritage director. “Here, the figure actually indicates the time, by pointing to the hours and minutes. To our knowledge, that is a world first.”
The timepiece’s decoration primarily is rock crystal, with accents of steel, lapis lazuli and quartzite on the base. Embedded below the clock, a miniature solar system shows planets in different materials, including silver obsidian, gray agate, azurite and red jasper.
La Quête du Temps is only on loan to the Louvre and eventually will be added to the Vacheron Constantin archive, but the brand has introduced a 43-millimeter, double-sided wristwatch, called the Métiers d’Art “Tribute to the Quest of Time,” in a limited edition of 20 (price on application).
Encased in 18-karat white gold, the watch is powered by the house’s new Caliber 3670. Its double-layer sapphire crystal dial has a golden astronomer figure in titanium at its center and a metalized depiction of the sky over Geneva on Sept. 17, 1755, the day the company was founded; the figure’s arms operate as retrograde hands to indicate the hours and minutes. A three-dimensional moon marks the lunar cycle while, on the back, the second dial features astronomical complications and a celestial chart of the sky indicates the position of stars from the Northern Hemisphere.
“In our digital age, La Quête is mechanical and analog, combining techniques perhaps considered obsolete,” Mr. Selmoni said. “But for us, it has the power to transcend its era, to speak to future generations and to celebrate the enduring value of the human hand.”
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