Jaquet Droz watches

Jaquet Droz takes its name and founding date from Pierre Jaquet-Droz, who opened a workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1738. Between 1768 and 1774 he, his son Henri-Louis and Jean-Frédéric Leschot built three automata, the Writer, the Musician and the Draughtsman, which still work and are displayed at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Neuchâtel.

The firm's activity ended after the deaths of Pierre in 1790 and Henri-Louis in 1791. The investment company Investcorp bought the rights to the name in 1989, and the Swatch Group acquired Jaquet Droz in 2000; the company, Montres Jaquet Droz, is based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The Grande Seconde, introduced in 2002, has overlapping hour-and-minute and seconds sub-dials that form a figure eight. In 2012 the brand returned to automata with the Bird Repeater, a minute repeater with animated birds. Other lines include Petite Heure Minute and Tourbillon Skelet.