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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Le Solliat, Vallée de Joux, Switzerland · born 1948

Philippe Dufour

Verified

Hand finishing and complicated watches

Life & work

Philippe Dufour works in the Vallée de Joux making complicated watches finished entirely by hand, including grande sonnerie pocket and wrist watches and duplex-escapement work.

He is widely cited as the benchmark for traditional hand finishing, particularly for black-polished steel and interior angles on bridges.

Training, contributions & innovations

  • Set a widely cited standard for hand finishing in modern watchmaking
  • Made grande sonnerie complications as an independent maker

Inventions & patents

  • No invention claim is asserted; his significance is execution to a documented standard.

Signatures & markings on surviving work

  • Signed and numbered watches, made in very small numbers and individually recorded.

Collecting significance

Signatures on historic work were applied by retailers and by later hands as well as by makers, so attribution should rest on the movement's construction and on documented provenance rather than on the name alone. A specialist opinion is worth obtaining before any purchase made on the strength of a signature.

Diagram

12345let downstripcleanoilregulateorder of work; never skip letting down the mainspring
Schematic: order of work at the bench. An outline schematic drawn to show the arrangement of the parts discussed here. It is not a dimensioned working drawing and does not depict a particular maker's calibre.

Sources & references

  1. Britten, F. J., Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers
  2. Loomes, B., reference works on British and European clockmakers (edition-dependent)
  3. Museum catalogue entries for signed examples

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