News On the 7th February, Girard-Perregaux announced its partnership with the Neuchâtel Ethnography Museum (Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel – MEN) for the «Imagine Japan» exhibition, which will open its doors on June 19th. The introductory part of this exhibition organized by the MEN was unveiled on the historically significant date of February 6, 2014, the official 150-year commemoration of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Switzerland and Japan.
Pocket watches that were imported to Japan by François Perregaux, the central character responsible for forging the first steps of Swiss watchmaking in the Land of the Rising Sun in the middle of the 19th century, were displayed during the exhibition. Properties of the Girard-Perregaux Museum, these timepieces are a priceless testament of the links that have bonded together the Chaux-de-Fonds Maison and the Japanese archipelago for more than one and a half centuries.
As part of the 150th anniversary celebration, Girard-Perregaux is also presenting other watches in Tokyo that experienced the same fate, in «The Mastery of Time» exhibit, organized by the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH).
150 years ago, in the Choji temple in Edo (Tokyo), a treaty of amity and commerce was signed between Swiss emissaries and representatives of the Imperial Japanese government. At the heart of exceptional relations between Switzerland and Japan, this bilateral agreement was a diplomatic and economic success: it allowed Swiss watchmakers to officially export their products to the Japanese market.
The man responsible for this mission was Aimé Humbert (1819-1900) of Chaux-de-Fonds, appointed as «Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Swiss Confederation in Japan» by the Federal Council for this task. Landing on the island in April 1863, Humbert was forced to wait nearly one full year before Japanese authorities agreed to discuss the matter.
It was one of the oldest residents of the French-speaking community in Japan that welcomed Aimé Humbert and his Swiss companions in this country: watchmaker François Perregaux. Born in 1834 to a family of important watch merchants from Le Locle, the brother of Marie Perregaux - who founded Girard-Perregaux with her husband Constant Girard, which to this day still bears their combined last names - François Perregaux left Switzerland in 1859 for Asia. Commissioned by Union Horlogère to establish an export post, he set up shop in Yokohama in 1860, becoming the first Swiss watch merchant to be established in the Land of the Rising Sun, just a few years before the signing of the aforementioned treaty of amity and commerce. In 1865, the man originally from Le Locle founded the company F. Perregaux & Co in Yokohama and would be, until his death in 1877, the official representative of Girard-Perregaux.
February 12, 2014
