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: France Case: Silver, smooth finish, gold crown, bow, hinge, and shackle, glazed movement. Dial: Enamel. Movement: Bridge movement, large screw-compensated balance, palladium balance spring. Victor Auguste Fénon (1843–1913) was a 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 timepieces 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 watchmaker Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl in Paris and rose to become an associate watchmaker at the Paris Observatory. His pendulum clocks achieved exceptional accuracy, accurate to one-hundredth of a second. He supplied astronomical regulators and chronometers to observatories such as those in 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’s Fair 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 Honor. Case: very good. Dial: very good. Movement: very good, capable of running; cleaning recommended.