SJX Watches
Complicated Collectors: King Farouk I
On the morning of March 30, 1937, 16-year-old King Farouk I of Egypt visited the workshops of Vacheron & Constantin in Geneva. He had been on the throne for less than a year. His father, Fouad I, had died in April 1936, leaving him the crown, the palaces, and a collection that included one of the most complicated watches the Swiss had ever produced. The welcome was formal, as the company’s records and the following morning’s edition of La Suisse both confirm. The young king was received by the company’s directors and shown the workshops. He was already, by multiple accounts, deeply interested in watches as objects to be understood from the inside — the tour of the manufacture was a pilgrimage. Vacheron Constantin, before Plan-les-Ouates. Image – SJX composite/Vacheron Constantin At some point during the visit, Farouk made a remark that passed into the house lore of Vacheron & Constantin and into several of his subsequent biographies, though seldom accurately. The original French, as La Suisse reported it, was precise: “C’est qu’on n’abîmera jamais autant de montres que je n’en ai abîmé étant enfant!”, which translates as “One will never ruin as many watches as I ruined as a child.” Secondary sources have rendered this with démontées — dismantled — in place of abîmé; a small but telling substitution that transforms an admission of destruction into evidence of mechanical curiosity. A child who dismantles watches is a nascent watchmaker. ...
