Jean Victorin Piguet

So it was that, in the late 1920s, three generations, led by Jean Victorin, sat down to create one of the most fascinating timepieces ever, when Patek Philippe commissioned them to produce nothing less than the most complicated watch in the world for New York banker Henry Graves Jr. Crafted from gold, Grave’s pocket watch would present 24 complications. It took the Valley’s watchmakers three years of preparation and five years at the workbench to complete, from 1925 to 1933. This was an era when watchmaking was divided into specialised crafts, a practice known as établissage, hence the Piguets called upon the talent and expertise of the Valley’s finest to produce a masterpiece that would retain its title of the world’s most complicated watch for a full fifty-six years – surpassed only by watches produced with the help of digitally programmed machines. The sons of Victorin Piguet did it all by hand.