Montre de poche entièrement fabriquée par Lucy Grossmann

Historical significance

• Gold pocket watch of Lépine type, central hours and minutes display by two steel Breguet-style hands, small seconds at 6 o’clock in a subsidiary dial. White enamel dial, 12-hour scale with black Arabic numerals, railway-style minute track. Signed at the centre: Lucy Grossmann Neuchâtel. 18-carat gold case, hallmarked and numbered 547. The cuvette bears the inscription: Ecole d’Horlogerie Neuchâtel 1913.
• Mechanical bridge movement signed Ecole d’Horlogerie Neuchâtel N°547", based on a LeCoultre 19 RV calibre, crown winding and push-piece time setting. Swiss lever escapement, cut bi-metallic compensation balance wheel with end-curve hairspring.
• Accompanied by a certificate from the École de mécanique et d’horlogerie de Neuchâtel and the bulletin of the Observatorium of Neuchâtel, the watch is preserved in a blue plastic presentation case.
• Lucy Grossmann, like her father and grandfather, showed from an early age strong mathematical abilities and exceptional manual dexterity. She was deeply influenced by a distinguished Swiss watchmaking family.
• Hermann Grossmann (1863–1928), director of the Neuchâtel Watchmaking School, passed on his passion for horology to his daughter Lucy. As the first female student of the school, she studied there from 1908 to 1913 and became the first woman in Switzerland to graduate in watchmaking.

Sources & references

1. Musée international d'horlogerie, online collection record, inv. I-3278: https://collection.mih.ch/fr/collection/item/90711/

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.