Credits: Article and images by Wei Koh @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/the-art-of-f-p-journe-christies-geneva-watch-auction-may-12-2023/
When asked why there are suddenly so many more real collectors that want Journe’s watches, George Mayer explains, “Look at it this way. If every serious Patek collector has also now become a Journe collector, there is an insurmountable delta where desire for his watches now massively exceeds the number of timepieces he is able to produce. The natural result to me is that they will only increase in value. Is that wrong or right? I’ll put it this way, to me every Journe watch represents an incredible work of art. In comparison to a Basquiat or a Warhol or any great painter, is the absolute cost of a Journe expensive? To me, there is still a lot of room to go.”
This feeding frenzy for Journe’s watches is not lost on the great watchmaker, though at the same time, he is nonplussed by it. He explains, “I recognize that today when you are allocated one of my watches, I am giving you the equivalent of a car in terms of what the secondary value margin might be. But I will still only allocate my watches to the same type of individual that has always supported me from the beginning, that is someone whose passion is so genuine that in the past he would have been happy losing 30 percent of the watch’s value rather than today where he gains 50 percent or more.” As far as the secondary value for his timepieces is concerned, you can see that Journe is cognizant of the appreciation but is seemingly unconcerned. That’s because as his friend Pierre Jacques, the CEO of De Bethune, points out, “François-Paul is an extraordinary man in that he is not at all motivated by money. He lives in a simple apartment in Geneva. He walks to his office every day to work at a normal desk. He comes home every day at noon to cook lunch for his mother. His love for horology is so inspiring, because it is purely about the pursuit of watchmaking perfection.”
Lest we forget, Journe has also been actively supporting young talent in their journey. Since 2015, he has organized the annual Young Talent Competition in partnership with The Hour Glass to seek out the next generation of watchmakers, where the winner is awarded with a diploma and a CHF 20,000 grant to purchase watchmaking tools.
François-Paul Journe once said to me, “If someone composes music, then he cannot ignore Mozart. He can’t ignore Beethoven. He can’t ignore the history of music. He continues in the tradition defined by those that came before him. But every once in a while, there will be a rare genius like Stravinsky that arrives and changes everything. But this doesn’t happen often. In watchmaking, we haven’t witnessed the birth of a Stravinsky for 200 years. The last one was Abraham-Louis Breguet.”
Yet, despite what Journe has said, what is clear to me, and to the most discerning collectors and journalists the world over, is that our era of contemporary horology has been defined by our own Stravinsky — a genius watchmaker, a man of profound brilliance and, though he often tries to hide it, of immeasurable compassion. And that is François-Paul Journe himself.
When I ask François-Paul to reflect on his achievements, he says with humility, “Watchmaking is like a long wall. What I have done is brought one or two stones to the wall, which is already not bad as there are many others who have never done even that.” But the truth is that it is not two stones that he has added, but an entire parapet, the foundation of which will serve to uplift an entire new generation of watchmakers. Because François-Paul Journe’s greatest achievement has been to ensure the long-term relevance and viability of true watchmaking for the foreseeable future. And so, you will understand that each of the watches offered in this sale initiated by the dynamic Remi Guillemin and Christie’s is not simply a timepiece but, to me, a part of the legacy of the greatest watchmaker of our time.
Christie’s live auction, the Art of F.P. Journe, takes place at 1:00 PM CEST on the 12th of May in Geneva.
Credits: Article and images by Wei Koh @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/the-art-of-f-p-journe-christies-geneva-watch-auction-may-12-2023/
