One-Of-A-Kind Creation Is A Homage To Al-Jazari’s Elephant Clock

John-Mikaël Flaux, in collaboration with the house Ben & Bros, has created a ‘one-of-a-kind’ watch that is a ‘meeting-point’ between the history of watchmaking, automata and sculpture. It brings all of these features together, drawing on a masterpiece designed ten centuries ago and now recreated with masterful talent and expertise.

With unrivalled creative genius, al-Jazari (1126-1206) gave life to the first known humanoid automata, water clocks and piston sets. As an inventor, he revolutionised engineering, hundreds of years before similar endeavours were carried out by like-minded polymaths. His masterpiece still stands as the most extraordinary creation in the history of automata and clockmaking. The so-called Elephant clock appears in the only known written testimony of al-Jazari’s work, the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.

The enduring attraction of this fascinating clock is so compelling that modern replicas of it can be found all around the world: in the United Arab Emirates at the Ibn Battuta Centre of Dubai, in Germany at the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science of Frankfurt, or in Switzerland at the Watch Museum of Le Locle, among many others.

This unique automated figure derives its movements from a mechanism hidden inside the elephant. A sinking counterpoise which, once entirely submerged, sets in motion a mechanical sequence releasing a ball from the beak of a falcon, which then falls into the mouth of a dragon, which tilts down under its weight. Once the dragon has reached its lowest point, it releases the ball into an urn, sounding the half-hour. Each repetition of this sequence colours one of the apertures on the pediment at the top of the tower.

For the first time, a watch inspired by this pioneering automaton has been made. It brings together al-Jazari’s original masterpiece with contemporary watchmaking expertise, adding John-Mikaël Flaux’s signature touch: a dash of emotion.

At the top, perforated hour-symbolsset in a half-circle show the passing of hours. This arch represents half a day (6am to 6pm, 6pm-6am). Starting from the usual time of sunrise, the perforated hour-symbols at the top progressively turn to white, one half at a time: the first half of each opening changes colour during the first half-hour, and the second half at the end of the hour. As the night draws in, the colour white is progressively replaced by the colour black.

Each half-hour comes with an animated sequence: the left dragon slowly tilts back, as if it was a lever being pulled back. At the end of this sequence, it springs back to its original position, in a reinterpretation of the traditional watchmaking technique of the retrograde display.

The decoration of the watch, in the manner of the frontispiece of a luxurious palace, was inspired by the overall architecture of al-Jazari’s masterpiece. In order to make the watch easier to read, an aperture displaying the hours and a central hand showing the minutes have been added. The Homage to al-Jazari is signed directly onto the main plate of the complication, in the tradition of old watchmaking masters.

Each watch is completed with a hand-painted back showing the original drawing of the automation as it was presented in one of the rare 13^thcentury surviving copies of al-Jazari’s Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. An opening at the back shows the heart of the object, beating at the traditional high watchmaking rhythm of 18’000 vibrations per hour, with a screw balancepolished in the chronometric tradition. The mechanism is set in a 42mm case with a movement providing a 40-hours power reserve.