Watchmaker; revived brand
Czapek
Also recorded as: Czapek & Cie · Czapek Genève · François Czapek · Franciszek Czapek
Name of the watchmaker who was Antoni Patek's first partner in Geneva, revived as an independent brand in 2015.
Franciszek (François) Czapek, a watchmaker of Czech origin who had worked in Warsaw, settled in Geneva and in 1839 went into partnership with Antoni Patek as Patek, Czapek & Cie. When the partnership ended in 1845 — Patek went on with Jean-Adrien Philippe — Czapek continued under his own name as Czapek & Cie and published a treatise on watchmaking.
In 2015 a group of entrepreneurs revived the name in Geneva, basing their first models on a Czapek pocket watch with two subsidiary dials.
- Country
- Switzerland (founder born in Bohemia)
- City / centre
- Geneva
- Founded
- 1845 (Czapek & Cie); revived 2015
- Status
- Active (revived)
- Key people
- Franciszek (François) Czapek (19th century)
Innovations & specialities
- Pocket watches of the 1840s–1860s for Polish and French clients
- Revived brand's two-subdial 'Quai des Bergues' design
Timeline
- 1839Patek, Czapek & Cie founded in Geneva
- 1845Partnership ends; Czapek & Cie
- 2015Brand revived
Works by Czapek in the catalogue
Open in the catalogue →
Movements & Components · 1845–1860
Pocket watch by Czapek & Cie, Switzerland, 1845–1860
Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt - Museum Schloss Neuenburg
Pocket Watches · c. 1850–55
Watch by François Czapek, c. 1850–55
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · c. 1850
Czapek & Cie pocket watch, Enamel and Rose-Cut Diamonds, circa 1850
Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
Wristwatches · 2018
Czapek Faubourg de Cracovie L'Heure Bleu Chronograph, 2018
S.Song Watches (dealer), Seattle
Wristwatches · 2021
Czapek Antarctique Monochrome Montre De Souscription 2, 2021
S.Song Watches (dealer), Seattle
Wristwatches · 2022
Czapek & Cie Antarctique White Dial Monochrome Edition, 2022
Bulang & Sons (dealer), Copenhagen
Wristwatches · c. 2023
Czapek & Cie Antartique, c. 2023
Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
Wristwatches · 2023
Czapek Antarctique P.04 Lanikai x Collective Horology, 2023
S.Song Watches (dealer), Seattle
Wristwatches · 2025
Czapek Antarctique Passage de Drake Sahara Night, 2025
Huntington Company (dealer)
Linked through the Atlas maker authority list, which reconciles the spellings used by different institutions. Attributions are as stated by each holding institution or auction house.
Read and see more
Magazine features
- Patek Philippe: A History in Objects, from Patek, Czapek & Cie to the Calatrava, the Nautilus and the Grand Complications
How a Geneva workshop founded in 1839 by two Polish émigrés became the most collected name in watchmaking — told through twenty watches in museum, auction and dealer records, from a Patek & Co. watch of the 1840s and Victorian minute repeaters to the Calatrava of 1932, the quartz Beta 21, the Nautilus, the 150th-anniversary watches of 1989 and the complications of the 2000s.
