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Lot Essay
François Joseph Bouhelier, a priest better known as Père or Father Bouhelier, was a native of St. Julien, a small village in the French Comte where the population, the majority farmers, used to produce cylinder escapements for French and Swiss watchmakers during winter. Père Bouhelier had immigrated to England during the French revolution where he presumably learned how to make a lever escapement.
The few watches made by Père Bouhelier known to have survived are all distinguished by the use of a rather uncommon, somehow avant-gardist calibre using a straight line lever escapement, all varying in shape or design.
Antiquarian Horology Bulletin No. 28 of March 2004 explains the early Mudge-Emery-Robin type lever escapement and mentions that a little known maker named Bouhelier made lever escapements of similar construction in the French Jura Mountains (pp. 60 & 61).
For an extensive essay on Père Bouhelier and his watches see Histoire de l'échappement à ancre - les montres à ancre françaises de la première génération by J.C. Sabrier, ANCAHA Association Nationale des Collectionneurs et Amateurs d'Horlogerie Ancienne et d'Art, Bulletin No. 23, 1978, pp. 58-60.
The few watches made by Père Bouhelier known to have survived are all distinguished by the use of a rather uncommon, somehow avant-gardist calibre using a straight line lever escapement, all varying in shape or design.
Antiquarian Horology Bulletin No. 28 of March 2004 explains the early Mudge-Emery-Robin type lever escapement and mentions that a little known maker named Bouhelier made lever escapements of similar construction in the French Jura Mountains (pp. 60 & 61).
For an extensive essay on Père Bouhelier and his watches see Histoire de l'échappement à ancre - les montres à ancre françaises de la première génération by J.C. Sabrier, ANCAHA Association Nationale des Collectionneurs et Amateurs d'Horlogerie Ancienne et d'Art, Bulletin No. 23, 1978, pp. 58-60.