THE GREAT COMPLICATIONS OF HIGH WATCHES
Series of three articles on minute repeater, perpetual calendar and tourbillon
The tourbillon is a mechanical compensator of the force of gravity.
The need to create such a mechanism arises when, in the search for precision, it is realized that the functioning of a watch is influenced by the earth's gravitational attraction.
Today, the tourbillon remains, in addition to being a testimony to a great watchmaking feat of the past, one of the most beautiful and fascinating complications in watchmaking.
History
During the XNUMXth century, the pursuit of watchmaking precision became an affair of state. The need to have a reliable method for determining the position of military and merchant fleets is essential in an era of expanding commercial traffic. Latitude, i.e. the angular distance from the Equator, can be measured with a sextant. To know longitude, i.e. the angular distance from the prime meridian of Greenwich, it is necessary to have a watch. This is to be able to know the current time in Greenwich and compare it with that recorded on site, thus determining how far east or west you are with respect to the prime meridian. Think of the map of time zones to understand the concept of the relationship between time and longitude.
Very skilled watchmakers responded to this challenge, introducing innovations of absolute importance.
One of the skilled creative people who applied their ingenuity to solving the problem of the correct measurement of time was the great Abraham-Louis Breguet, the true founding father of modern watchmaking.
In 1798, Breguet presented the patent for his invention, which would revolutionize the way of making watchmaking.
The technique
The tourbillon takes its name from a French term used in astronomy to indicate the revolution of the planets around the Sun. The analogy is evident when analyzing the functioning of the mechanism.
The tourbillon is a rotating support, containing the watch's escapement system. The escapement consists of the balance-spring, the lever and the escape wheel. These elements determine the running rate of the watch, and are the most sensitive to the influence of gravity: hence the idea of protecting them from it through the complication we are dealing with.
The rotation of the tourbillon allows the escapement to be exposed to the gravitational force, alternating its position along all the possible vectors of action of the aforementioned force. In this way, the influence of gravity, which tends to speed up or slow down the watch depending on the position of the escapement, is perfectly compensated. To the full advantage of driving precision.
The tourbillon remained exclusive to the Breguet manufacture for a long time. The manufacturing complexity and high cost contributed to limiting the diffusion of this refined complication for almost two centuries.
The tourbillon to this day
During the twentieth century, some manufacturers other than Breguet began to show interest in the tourbillon. Initially, the aim was to overcome the challenges of chronometric precision, then this high-end watchmaking mechanism was used to demonstrate manufacturing expertise, integrating it into increasingly more compact movements, until arriving, in 1980, at mount it in wristwatches.
The tourbillon went through a period of crisis in the Seventies, with the advent of the well-known quartz crisis. Inexpensive and highly accurate quartz watches outclass even the finest mechanical watches in terms of accurate timekeeping.
The passion for haute horlogerie leads to the rebirth of the tourbillon in recent times. As mentioned, in the XNUMXs this refined complication was included in wristwatches, and since then it began to fall into the favor of enthusiasts and collectors.
The tourbillon today
For enthusiasts of watchmaking technology, the tourbillon represents, together with the perpetual calendar and the minute repeater, one of the three most fascinating complications of haute horlogerie. No luxury watch collection would be complete without including watches with these features. Fortunately for collectors and enthusiasts, numerous houses today they offer watches equipped with tourbillons: the future of this splendid creation, originally conceived by the great Abraham-Louis Breguet, is assured.
