Jaeger-LeCoultre

Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre SA, or simply Jaeger-LeCoultre ( ʒeʒɛʁ ləkultʁ), is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded by Antoine LeCoultre in 1833 and is based in Le Sentier, Switzerland. Since 2000, the company has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont. Jaeger-LeCoultre is regarded as a top-tier Richemont brand. It has hundreds of inventions, patents, and more than one thousand movements to its name, including the world's smallest movement, one of the world's most complicated wristwatches (Grande Complication), and a timepiece of near-perpetual movement (the Atmos clock). The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530 – circa 1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lizy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of “inhabitant” but left the following year to acquire a plot of land in the Vallée de Joux. Over time, a small community formed and in 1612, Pierre LeCoultre's son built a church there, marking the founding of the village of Le Sentier where the company's Manufacture is still based today. In 1833, following his invention of a machine to cut watch pinions from steel, Antoine LeCoultre (1803-1881) founded a small watchmaking workshop in Le Sentier, where he honed his horological skills to create high-quality timepieces. In 1844, he invented the world's most precise measuring instrument at the time, the Millionomètre, and in 1847 he created a keyless system to rewind and set watches. Four years later, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and Mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London. In 1866, at a time when watchmaking skills were divided up among hundreds of small workshops, Antoine and his son, Elie LeCoultre (1842-1917), established the Vallée de Joux's first full-fledged manufacture, LeCoultre & Cie., pooling their employees’ expertise under one roof.