Over the Top: Are Desk Clocks Having a Moment?

Desktop clocks got a lot of buzz at the Geneva auctions in May. Phillips, in association with Bacs & Russo, offered nine exceptional Cartier clocks from a prestigious private collection during its Spring auctions in Geneva and Hong Kong.
 

This month, boutique auction house Piguet is offering a Fabergé desk clock made during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II as a gift for domestic or foreign dignitaries.
 

There are many reasons for this current fascination with desk clocks. An amateur anthropologist might posit that a post-pandemic society is still questioning the very definition of what an office is, and something tangible and analog, like a clock, might serve as a symbolic security blanket.
 

Or maybe we’re just intrigued by the opulence of a desktop clock. For instance, at Phillips’ recent Geneva Watch Auction: XXI, the F.P.Journe x THA for Breguet Pendule Sympathique No. 1 sold for CHF 5,505,00 to watchmaker François-Paul Journe, who fought off several other bidders for the timepiece. He had been commissioned by Breguet to design and build the timepiece some 35 years before and wanted/needed it for his archives.
 

Of course, a clock this magnificent would make an excellent centerpiece for the upcoming F.P.Journe museum, but a great desktop clock can also bring your workspace together. So, let’s talk about clocks.

A desk clock (a.k.a. table or tabletop clock) is a compact timekeeping device designed for use on flat surfaces. While its primary mission is to tell time, it is also meant to make a decorative statement in a workspace or living area.
 

Haute horology has always traded in these mechanical marvels. Take, for example, Patek Philippe’s legendary 1923 “Packard Clock,” a wedge-shaped, Deco-era desktop model created for industrialist James Ward Packard, featuring hand-engraved details, painted numerals, metalwork, and decorations.

The Ref. 27000M-001 may resemble the historical Packard Clock, but inside, it’s powered by a new grand complication movement. Lift the hood of this nouveau Packard and you’ll discover a cutting-edge control console featuring five labeled pushers for calendar adjustments and a patented key ejection system. This console controls the new Caliber 86-135 PEND S IRM Q SE movement, a mechanism that represents seven years of research and development.
 

Three mainspring barrels provide a 31-day power reserve, while a patented constant-force mechanism ensures the balance maintains stability from first wind to last, achieving precision of ±1 second per day.

In 2024, Jacob & Co. marked the start of its partnership with the French hypercar maker with the release of the Bugatti Tourbillon timepiece. For their collaborative piece, the two luxury brands have gone all in on an unusual watchmaking format – a table clock.

Crafted using ultra-luxurious materials such as its Lalique-made crystal case, the Bugatti Calandre references legendary Bugatti cars (such as the Type 41 Royale) by integrating two intricately sculpted Dancing Elephants into the design. These pachyderms are placed facing each other, creating a symmetry that recalls a radiator grille. Of course, since this is a Jacob & Co. piece, the “cap” of this faux radiator is an exquisite 30mm, 288-facet, gem-cut, Bugatti-red crystal.
 

Behind this grille is the JCAM58 movement, which Jacob & Co. developed explicitly for the Bugatti Calandre, featuring a vertical flying tourbillon. While the inclusion of a tourbillon creates a connection between this piece and Bugatti’s newly released Bugatti Tourbillon Hypercar, it should also be noted that the tourbillon is more than a fancy feature, seeing as tourbillons were invented to counteract the effects of gravity in timepieces, like pocket watches and clocks, that maintained a vertical position, thus improving the movement’s accuracy.

The Jacob & Co. Bugatti Calandre has an eight-day power reserve and is set and wound using a special key inserted into the clock’s caseback. It’s super cool and super chic at the same time

Every year, Chanel creates a table clock that is as much a tribute to the Maison’s haute couture and high jewelry traditions as it is to its horological chops. This year, the brand released the Diamonds Astroclock, designed in collaboration with Swiss clockmaker L’Epée 1839.
 

Executed in white gold and snow-set with 5,037 brilliant-cut diamonds, the base of the Diamonds Astroclock features a mighty lion with its paw placed atop a polished obsidian sphere. Fun Fact: The lion imagery on this one-of-a-kind table clock is a nod to Coco Chanel’s abiding interest in astrology; plus, she was a Leo. However, as impressive as these stones are, the most dazzling details of this pièce unique are draped around actual clockwork.

Housed inside a glass globe, the Astroclock is a universe unto itself with a sophisticated mechanical mechanism with an eight-day power reserve.
 

More specifically, a comet-shaped hand, set with 11 diamonds, shoots across a rotating planetary dial to indicate the hours. Minutes are gracefully marked by a diamond-set hand shaped like the Leo constellation while a rotating white gold satellite, studded with 66 glittering diamonds, continuously circles the whole setup.

Perhaps the most amazing of these art objects is Trilobe’s aptly named Le Temps Retrouvé (or, in English, “Time Regained”), a nod to Marcel Proust and his seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, also known as Remembrance of Things Past in English. And while that opus was a slow meditation on nostalgia, this timepiece will immediately blow your mind with its explorations into the psyche.
 

The exterior, carved from transmuted marble, looks like a simple classical sculpture. But the bust is a sort of automaton, displaying the hours through a decorative rosette placed on either side of the head, and the minutes via the portrait’s rotating eyeballs. The sculpted figure also aspirates, releasing a waft of fragrance as it “breathes” out.

This bust is also an impressive clockwork designed by Trilobe and made by Boris Masur in Sainte-Croix, a historic center for automatons. The skull split open to reveal an imposing watchmaking mechanism made up of 2,050 components.
 

To make it even more mind-blowing, you can commission any face mold you like – even your own! As Trilobe describes it, Le Temps Retrouvé is more than a clock; it’s a sculpture that invites you to slow down, observe, and interact. And in the end, that’s what all good art and timepieces should do.