Audemars Piguet

ThomasM
[PuristS]
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The Piguet family and various historical Piguet named watchmaking companies

The Piguet family and its many branches in watchmaking

I pulled this from archives for a Patek discussion; I thought AP fans might find it interesting as well.

Cheers,

TM

Here's some information I wrote in 2002 on the Piguet watchmaking family, based on documentary and oral history research I had done in the context of AP -

"Because of the common last name in the company names for F Piguet and Audemars Piguet, it is often asked if there is any direct relationship between these two companies.

F Piguet is an indepedent movement maker that was instrumental in the re-birth of Blancpain. Until Swatch (then SMH) acquired both F Piguet and Blancpain, F Piguet was essentially the movement side of Blancpain, though many other high end houses used F Piguet movements, and have for quite some time.

F Piguet has no direct business ties to Audemars Piguet, though there are some ancestral connections. Piguet is a fairly common Swiss last name, but Le Brassus is also a very small town / village.

AP has used F Piguet movement blanks and ebauche in the past, and currently uses the Piguet 1185 chronograph movement in the Royal Oak Chronograph.

The Famille Piguet settled in the Vallee de Joux in the late 15th century. One of the first Piguet's to get into the watch making business was Charles August Piguet, who set up an ebauch manufacturing facility in the late 1700's. There came a long line of Piguets after this, and the name is an important one and is inextricably intertwined with watch making in the VdJ and the Vaud.

Interestingly, the Audemars and Piguet families were involved together before the famous Jules Audemars - Edward Piguet pairing of AP fame. There were two predecessor companies, Audemars Freres, which iteslf was a spionoff of Louis Audemars, and Piguet-Meylan, which involved Piguet cousins (?) and a brother-in-law of Louis Audemars.

By the late 1800's, several eponymous companies were extant, including Louis-Elysee Piguet & Fie of Le Brassus; Charles Piguet of L'Orient (the original home of Lemania); and Victorin Piguet in Le Sentier.

L-E Piguet evolved into Frederic Piguet in the early-mid 1900's (1940?), Frederic Piguet being the nephew of L-E Piguet (Oesterhausen)

There has been some question and speculation about the relationship of V. Piguet and F. Piguet. Les Fils de Victorin Piguet was doing some of their most famous work for Patek, including a large part of the famous Packer and Graves Super complications, in the early to mid 1900's (1905-1945?), so there would seem to be a bit of an overlap between Victorin Piguet and Frederic Piguet as extant companies. This would lead me to question any direct lineage between V Piguet and F Piguet, though there could very well be less over-arching ties between the two.

The common linkage between all these companies is the Piguet name, a mastery and focus on ultra sophisticated complications, and the family crest - a rearing horse with a flagstaff (or spear) and three stars.

Around the turn of the 20th century, L-E Piguet also supplied to AP many of the ebauche (rough movements) which were in turn supplied to Duerrstein and Glashuette Union, one of the leading watch companies in Glashutte at the time, currently the home of A Lange and Glashutte Original and most of the German watch industry. The L-E Piguet workshops in particular were famous for high complications, with a specialization in chronographs and rattrapantes. They also produced some incredible repeaters and sonneries, some of which are shown, with audio file, lower down on this reference page. One of the finished Louis-Elysee Piguet complicated pocket watches was to become the base for what will be the world's most complicated wristwatch when it is finished and officially unveiled sometime before the end of this year (there have already been plenty of sneak peaks on the work in progress.) This wristwatch is patroned by a regular member of ThePuristS community.

TM
copyright 2000, 2002"