After 270 Years, Vacheron Constantin Reaches Beyond Watchmaking With La Quête Du Temps

If asked which was more impressive, it would be hard for me to choose between the La Quête du Temps clock unveiled at the Louvre in Paris or the staff of Vacheron Constantin putting on a surprising show of music and dance in the Genevan manufacture the next day. “VC” started its celebration of 270 years of uninterrupted watchmaking history earlier this year at Watches and Wonders, and it culminated in the unveiling of a one-of-a-kind 6,293-part masterpiece that’s not for sale but is the centerpiece of the Mécaniques d’Art exhibition at the famous museum from September 17th to November 12th, 2025. The impressive and massive astronomical clock/automaton took seven years to develop. The Métiers d’Art Tribute to the Quest of Time is a 20-piece limited-edition double-sided wristwatch paying aesthetic and technical homage to La Quête du Temps. After 270 years, Vacheron Constantin reaches beyond watchmaking.

Vacheron Constantin’s relationship with the Louvre began in 2016 with the restoration of the Pendule La Création du Monde, an astronomical clock presented to Louis XV in 1754. In 2019, VC and the Louvre formed a formal artistic and cultural partnership and then renewed it in 2023. Centered on heritage preservation and the celebration of arts and crafts, this collaboration has given rise to remarkable creations, such as a one-of-a-kind, bespoke Les Cabinotiers timepiece auctioned in 2020 as part of the Bid for the Louvre auction and the Métiers d’Art – Tribute to Great Civilisations collection in 2022. This year marks the 270th anniversary of the Genevan brand, and the highlight of the celebrations takes place in the Louvre.

Vacheron Constantin reaches beyond watchmaking: La Quête du Temps is more than a mechanical masterpiece

Not only did VC’s watchmakers and specialists in artistic crafts technically reach for the heavens, but the concept of this La Quête du Temps — French for “The Quest for Time” — astronomical clock/automaton and its purpose also uplifts and maybe even transcends watchmaking.

When you read the following, it will dazzle your brain. La Quête du Temps, featuring 23 complications, took seven years to develop. It has 6,293 mechanical components, including 2,370 for the clock and 1,020 for the exterior. Seven watchmaking patent applications have been filed for it along with eight for the automaton, which features a humanoid figurine making 144 gestures.

To give you an idea of the size, here’s VC’s Style & Heritage Director Christian Selmoni standing next to La Quête du Temps

It still doesn’t do the 250kg, 1m-tall, and 50cm-wide creation justice. La Quête du Temps is the result of integrating an automaton into a clock. Automatons date back to Ancient Greek and Persian empires, but no record exists of an automaton with an integrated timekeeping function.

With a little help from their friends

La Quête du Temps shows a humanoid figure telling time like a dancer in retrograde fashion — the hours with the right arm and the minutes with the left. The idea started as a 35cm-tall object and became what it is today thanks to help from François Junod, a man recognized by many in watchmaking as the world’s most excellent automaton maker. He created the clock’s mechanism and casing in collaboration with L’Épée 1839, the famed clockmaker.

Astronomers from the Geneva Observatory helped to tell the celestial narrative without fault, and VC’s master artisans devoted their specialized skills to the artistic decoration of the mechanical wonder. For instance, there’s marquetry of rock crystal at the base, the cabinet for the automaton mechanism shows decorative elements set with rock crystal, quartzite, and lapis lazuli, and the reverse side dial has a peripheral ring set with baguette-cut moonstones.

The creation shows four civil time indications, six perpetual calendar functions, three moon indications, five astronomical indications, five additional functions, including astrological zodiac signs, and nine additional systems, like gravity-controlled hour and minute indicators on the clock.

What is it?

La Quête du Temps is a timeless creation. It’s the first the only object of its kind, and there won’t be a second one in the future. As VC created it because the company felt the need to do so — it’s also the jewel in the crown of its 270th-anniversary novelties, of course — and it will not be for sale, it becomes a different object. Even a one-off-piece made in the Cabinotiers workshop for a demanding brand client is eventually “just” a watch. La Quête du Temps, however, is a piece for eternity. No one will be able to buy it, and it will remain with the brand.

La Quête du Temps is not a typical product of our time. It could have been made in the 17th century, but it could also have come to us from the future. But it is also a display of strength that sends a message to the world of horology. Vacheron Constantin has spent several years and an enormous sum of money on creating something the world of watchmaking has never seen, and it debuts as the centerpiece of an exhibition in the Louvre, perhaps the world’s most famous and prestigious museum. The automaton clock has received recognition and approval from a cultural institution. This is far beyond carrying the Geneva Hallmark. La Quête du Temps transcends the parallel world of horology and puts itself in reality.

An intriguing figurine

What VC has done is on another level in so many ways. It’s a self-confident show of what the brand is capable of, and it might send shivers down the spines of Vacheron Constantin’s competitors. What sent shivers down my spine was the almost alien-like humanoid figurine in cast bronze and plated with yellow gold, consisting of eight parts and articulated in five positions. Its body shows hand-engraved constellations and 122 brilliant-cut diamonds, creating an alien look. The figurine, animated by tungsten cables attached to sensor-probes and driven by cams, has an appearance that makes me think of something out of a realistic sci-fi movie. It has a somewhat superior aura and could have been sent to us from a galaxy far, far away, maybe as a sign of goodwill or a warning that the quest for time comes with grave dangers and unimaginable challenges.

The musical sequences created by two instruments — a metallophone and wah-wah tubes controlled by a gear train driven by the barrel that animates the automaton character — completes the cinematographic experience.

The clear tones are the soundtrack to an otherworldly scene that won’t leave you untouched. No matter whether you see La Quête du Temps as a mechanical masterpiece, a show of force, or an art object, it will put your brain to work.

Tribute on the wrist: the Métiers d’Art Tribute to The Quest of Time

The Métiers d’Art Tribute to The Quest of Time was not in the Louvre because it is a commercial limited edition of 20 watches. Creating this double-sided timepiece took three years. It features four patent applications and the new manually wound manufacture caliber 3670, consisting of 512 components.

The 43mm white gold watch features a retrograde time display with continuous and on-demand viewing modes. It also has a double-retrograde power display indicating the six-day power reserve in two sequential displays — from 6 to 3 and 3 to 0. Furthermore, the watch contains a 3D precision moonphase indicator showing the Moon’s age. The reverse dial of the Poinçon de Genève-certified watch features a sky chart displaying the sidereal day and tracking the constellations in real time, accurate to one day of variation in 9,130 years.

The humanoid telling time with its arms appears to be standing in the center of the cosmos. In homage to Vacheron Constantin’s 270th anniversary, the celestial vault behind the figurine shows the constellations that appeared above Geneva on September 17th, 1755, the date of the brand’s founding.

Staggering facts, figures, and figurines

If you want to find out all there is to know about La Quête du Temps and/or the Métiers d’Art Tribute to The Quest of Time from a technical perspective, please visit the official Vacheron Constantin website. The brand will provide you with all the staggering facts and figures on dimensions, materials, components, and figurines. If you want to discuss the astronomical clock/automaton and/or the wristwatch, please do so in the comments section below.

Also, allow me to revisit my dilemma from the beginning of the article. La Quête du Temps is an object unlike anything I have seen, and it blows me away. But so did the way Vacheron Constantin presented itself during the recent four-day celebration. The brand displayed itself as a united entity driven by passion, dedication, and vision. It is a force to be reckoned with by everybody in the watchmaking world.