The story of BOVET begins in the Swiss Jura Mountains, in the village of Fleurier, where in the late 18th century Jean-Frédéric Bovet worked as a watchmaker and passed his craft to his sons Edouard, Frédéric, Alphonse and Gustave. In 1814 three of the brothers left Fleurier for London, then the heart of the global watch trade, where they worked for the trading house Magniac & Co. In 1818 Magniac sent Edouard to Guangzhou, at the time the only Chinese port open to Western traders; he arrived carrying four pocket watches that sold almost immediately for the equivalent of roughly a million Swiss francs today. Recognising the opportunity, the brothers founded the Maison BOVET in 1822, registered in London on 1 May with production and transit in London, main production in Fleurier and sales in Guangzhou. BOVET specialised in richly decorated timepieces for the Chinese imperial and aristocratic clientele — pearl-set cases, enamel miniature painting, cloisonné and flinqué enamel, fine engraving — sold in pairs to suit local custom, and introduced one of the great innovations of watch presentation, the exhibition case back. Such was its standing that the Chinese transliteration 'Bowei' became an everyday word for a fine watch. In 1855 the Maison won the Gold Medal in the luxury category at the Paris Universal Exhibition for a pair of enamelled pocket watches commissioned by the Xianfeng Emperor.
Innovation runs through the house: in 1889 it developed a flyback chronograph whose two subdials could be set as a second time zone; in the 1930s it patented the Easel Chronometer, whose fold-out foot allowed a timepiece to stand as a table clock and which later inspired the modern Amadeo convertible system and the 19Thirty collection; and in the 1940s it created a mono-pusher chronograph construction still taught in Swiss watchmaking schools. Pascal Raffy acquired the House in 2001 and in 2006 purchased a specialist tourbillon manufacture in Tramelan, rebuilding BOVET as a truly integrated manufacture where more than fifty artisans master over 50 separate skills, from hairspring production to hand-engraving, perlage, anglage and mirror polishing. Producing more than 95% of its own components — including hairsprings, escapements and regulating organs — the Maison does not use the 'Swiss Made' label but emblazons 'Swiss Handcrafted' on every timepiece, of which it makes only around 1,000 a year. Its watches are held in museums including the Forbidden City Museum in Beijing, the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the British Museum and the Musée International de l'Horlogerie, and more than 60 vintage and modern pieces are displayed at the BOVET Castle at Château de Môtiers.
