Japy Frères

Frédéric Japy (1749–1812) was born at Beaucourt, near Montbéliard, and trained as a watchmaker in Switzerland from 1768, notably with Jean-Jacques Jeanneret-Gris. In 1776 he bought his former master's machines and inventions, and in 1777 built a factory at Beaucourt where machine tools made the parts of a watch ébauche (the unfinished movement) that had previously been made by hand by many separate outworkers. His ébauches sold at about a third of the price of hand-made ones (2.50 against 7.50 francs in 1794), and by 1806 the works employed about 500 people.

In 1806 Japy handed the business to his three eldest sons, Fritz-Guillaume, Louis and Pierre, and it became Japy Frères. The firm diversified into wire, screws and hardware and later into typewriters, pumps and electrical goods, becoming one of the largest industrial companies in France under the Second Empire. In horology it was above all a mass producer of movements for French mantel, carriage and travelling clocks, many of them sold to Paris case makers and retailers who put their own names on the dial; movement backplates are often stamped with the Japy Frères name and exhibition medals.

The Musée Frédéric-Japy at Beaucourt records the family's industrial history.

How to recognise the work: many French mantel and carriage clocks have movements by Japy Frères, stamped on the backplate with the firm's name and, often, the medals it won at exhibitions; the case and dial may bear the name of a Paris retailer instead. The stamp dates the movement only roughly, so the case style and other marks need to be read with it.