The museum website is permanently replenished with new exhibits. Today we present to your attention updates in the section “Objects with Musical Movement”

Watch keys and musical bob seals were long ignored by collectors, except for certain particularly beautiful and rare pieces. All presented in the museum Collection items are art objects both by dint of the time of creating and artistic technique implemented, by decorative themes and wide range of materials used. There is also a variety of philosophical, historical and literary themes, professions and religious beliefs. Certain items are miniature technical masterpieces; others are true pieces of jewellery. Still others contain a complete watch and case.

These small accessories were widely produced during the 17th-19th centuries, and even as late as the 20th century. The history of watch keys is just one of the many facets of time management – it is small niche in the long history of watches. Keys and fobs are the indispensable and inseparable companions of watches. They gives watch life.

The museum Collection exposition features the unique exhibit -- Watch key with full calendar in case, created by Parisian artisan Tavernier Etienne* in the late 18th century. This key indicated the day, the date, the moon phases, etc. Its mechanism is rather simple: th win the watch every day, the square-cut rod inside the key presses the internal shaft that advances the calendar indications by one day.

You can learn more about the exhibits - musical fob seals and musical keys with automata for winding pocket watches in the section "Items with Musical Movement".

*Etienne Tavernier learned the art of horology from his father, whose profession, according to the 1772 Dauphin Almanac, was the construction of very small pieces such as watches mounted in bracelets, rings and cane handgrip.