Despite all of his apparent fame, Czapek managed to disappear without a trace. He was last heard of in about 1869, when his business in Paris changed hands. Was he ill? Dead? Did he get caught up in the devastating siege of Paris that began a year later, or the Paris Commune after that? Or perhaps he lost his mind from the mercury vapor process used in gold-plating of movements? At any rate, the strange and sudden disappearance of this maverick watchmaker has brought a slightly mystical aura to the revival of his brand …. Did he ever die?
ARTIST AND ARTISAN Czapek survives in a few pocketwatches, and what they reveal is that he was definitely an esthete. This is evidenced by the few watches that have survived from his repertoire, watches that occasionally show up at auctions or in museums. He liked to arrange subdials in specific ways, and he had an intuitive sense for eye-catching contrasts. For the new Czapek it was soon clear that replicating this particular style directly would not work. Straight copies tend to fall flat – think Union Horlogère from a few years back – because once the wow wears off, you are simply left with an old watch in a new case.
The first collection by the resuscitated Czapek made use of some of the more salient elements of the original, like the two subdials, with the power reserve and small second, the narrow Roman numerals, the classic look, and remade them for a modern audience as if Czapek himself had never died. The fleur-de-lys hands were replaced with openworked arrows that pointed resolutely towards
Top: Quai des Bergues No. 23
Czapek Mouvement SXH1 Above: The Fleur-de-lys hands
2017 | WRISTWATCH 53