500 Years, 100 Watches

From two of the world’s leading experts on watch collecting, this supremely elegant and informative selection of one hundred watches traces the timepiece’s evolution as it highlights unusual, important, and beautifully crafted watches of the past half a millennium.

For centuries people have been captivated by watches—whether for their technical precision, their unique design, or their historic importance. Each of the one hundred watches profiled in this elegant book stands out for one or more of these qualities. Organized chronologically and divided by century, the watches are presented in spacious, double-page spreads, featuring exquisite photography with engaging, incisive texts.

Readers will discover examples of the earliest watch forms; an astonishing Elizabethan-era watch with astrolabic dial; an early 17th century watch encased in a single emerald; two of the earliest watches to incorporate the balance spring—a feature that revolutionized the portable timekeeper; and some of the first repeating and perpetual calendar watches. These are followed by the first lever watch, invented by Thomas Mudge; important precision watches; early 19th century enamel and automaton watches; highly complex watches by Breguet and Patek Philippe; Sir Winston Churchill’s yellow gold World Time Victory watch; a Rolex wristwatch made to commemorate Indian Republic Day; an Omega Speedmaster that went into space; and a Roger Smith wristwatch completed in 2023.

Featuring exquisitely reproduced photographs that are appearing for the first time together in book form, this historic collection will appeal to sophisticated collectors, amateur watch enthusiasts, and anyone with an interest in the art and science of horology.

ALEXANDER BARTER served as Deputy Worldwide Head of Sotheby’s watch division. In 2009 he co-founded the Black Bough company with Adam Withington and in 2019 published his first book, The Watch: A Twentieth-Century Style History (Prestel).

The Chairman of Sotheby’s International Watch Division, DARYN SCHNIPPER is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of watches and has played a pivotal role in the sale of numerous important single-owner watch and clock collections.