Jean Lavaivre

Jean Lavaivre, Directeur Ecole Nationale d'Horlogerie, "Cours du Pendule et d'Échappement", illustrations by Jean Régère, circa 1890. Exceptionally rare, probably unique, unpublished handwritten manuscript of a treatise on escapements and complicated horological mechanisms with hand colored ink illustrations, no doubt destined for the 1897 Centennial Besançon Exhibition. Notes Sometimes, very rarely, we have a pleasure of discovering an unpublished manuscript. Over the past years, Antiquorum has been entrusted with many very important Breguet documents and, in this very sale, papers of the well-known Louis Cottier.Here we have a document of equal importance, which has been prepared for publication by the author. It is a major treatise on escapements, beautifully handwritten, with superbly done hand-colored drawings. It covers all the basic forms of escapements but also describes and illustrates the constant force escapement, Breguet tourbillon, detent, etc.It also illustrates such mechanisms as the wandering hour display, independent seconds driven from a single barrel, repetition for musical watches, half-quarter repetition (found for instance in the rare Patek Philippe watch, lot. No. 347), calculation for an equation of time cam, fusee with maintaining power, etc...The manuscript shows very skillful draftsmanship, resulting in a rare combination of beauty and technical clarity. The text shows deep knowledge of the subject. It was no doubt destined for an exhibitio