150 - Auguste Fénon - Lever Chronometer

Auguste Fénon - Lever Chronometer (*) An important heavy lever chronometer Cal. LeCoultre, Case No. 16538, Dimensions 55 mm, circa 1890, Weight 147 g, Origin Frankreich Case: Silver, smooth, gold crown, bow, hinge and shackle, glazed movement. Dial: Enamel. Movm.: Bridge movement, large screw compensation balance, Palladium balance spring. Victor Auguste Fénon (1843–1913) was an renowned French precision engineer and watchmaker who specialized in precision pendulum clocks and marine chronometers. As the successor to Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl, he produced highly accurate timekeepers for European and South American observatories as well as for the French Navy. Fénon was born in Paris on April 2, 1843 and began learning the craft at the age of eleven from his father. He completed his training with the famous maker Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl in Paris and rose to become an associate watchmaker of the Paris Observatory. His pendulum clocks achieved exceptional accuracy in the hundredth-of-a-second range. He supplied astronomical regulators and chronometers to observatories such as Marseille, Besançon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Nice. In 1877 he won a competition organized by the city of Paris for the synchronized control of subsidiary clocks. At the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris he received first prize for his horological work, and at the end of that same year he was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Case: very good. Dial: very good. Movm.: very good, capable of running, cleaning recommended.