Christiaan Huygens, the balance-spring, Clocks and Watches
21 February 2025
On 20 February a momentous event took place at the Musée International d’Horlogerie (MIH) in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Neuchâtel canton).
Joost Albers, chairman of the Haegsche Tijd Stichting (Foundation), during the opening speech
On 25 February 1675, the French journal Journal des Sçavans published an article on a pioneering discovery and application for clockworks: the balance-spring (le spiral réglant) by Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695).
The Dutch ensemble La Sfera Armoniosa played compositions by his father Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) under the watchful eye of Christiaan (see below).
At the time, Huygens was living in Paris as research director of the Académie Royale des Sciences. This balance spring mechanism was and is of fundamental importance for watchmaking and precise time measurement. This invention was the culmination of a long quest by several European scientists.
As far as it is known, Isaac Thuret (1630-1706) made the first clock with the balance-spring in Paris in 1675. Collection: Bert Degenaar. The Planetarium Zuylenburgh Collection (Oud-Zuilen).
Journal des Sçavans with the drawing of Christiaan Huygens’ regulating balance-spring. Collection: Bibliothèque publique et universitaire Neuchâtel. Right: reconstruction of the original balance-spring by the restoration centre of Musée International d’Horlogerie.
In its world capital and cooperating with the Haegsche Tijd Foundation, the watch industry commemorates this still indispensable piece of a watch and timepieces in the exhibition ‘Innovation in Movement. 350 years of hairspring’ (L’innovation en mouvement. 350 ans du ressort spiral) with unique clockworks and documentation from this period.
This site will soon have a more detailed article on this pioneering century-old invention, its inventor, Swiss and Dutch cooperation, and the exhibition in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
(Source and further information: Musée International d’Horlogerie; Stichting Haegsche Tijd)
Christiaan Huygens (seated left) among other scholars of his time. Wallpainting Musée International d’Horlogerie
Impressions of the exhibition
Bernard Vaillant (1632-1698), Christiaan Huygens, 1686
Current Dutch watchmaking in the exhibition. Christiaan van der Klaauw’s planetarium in watch format