Montblanc Global Special Exhibition: Two Centuries of Swiss Antique Watches Come to Taiwan

By Li Xinyi, compiled and reported

This year marks the 190th anniversary of the invention of the chronograph. Montblanc has specially collaborated with the Swiss International Watch Museum (Musée international d’horlogerie). Starting this month through February 2012, the global touring exhibition “Writing Time—Two Centuries of Chronograph History” will be held. The Montblanc chronograph watch 190th anniversary touring exhibition will comprehensively present nearly fifty antique chronograph watches since the birth of the chronograph. The exhibition is now on display in northern, central, and southern Taiwan.

Accompanying humanity’s diverse needs for measuring time, chronographs have evolved from their initial use in horse racing to applications in science, medicine, industrialization, and now to the aerospace industry and the world of luxury. This “Montblanc Chronograph Watch 190th Anniversary Touring Exhibition,” jointly organized by Montblanc and the International Watch Museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, selects dozens of antique chronograph timepieces from the museum’s collection, along with numerous antique chronograph watch treasures from Montblanc’s headquarters and private collections. The scale of the exhibition in Taiwan is the largest in all of Asia and will tour through northern, central, and southern Taiwan. In Taipei, it will be displayed from today until September 11 at Pacific SOGO Fuxing Branch, from the 15th to the 19th in Kaohsiung Hanshin Dome, and from the 21st to the 24th in Taichung Shin Kong Mitsukoshi.

Established in 1902, the International Watch Museum houses a collection of over 4,500 items, including clocks, watches, tools, machinery, and paintings, tracing humanity’s pursuit of time. From early sundials, rare 17th-century watches, elegant 18th-century clocks, 19th-century watches with complex functions, to the highly intricate and graceful 20th-century watch creations, all can be seen in the museum.