Édouard Bovet

The lacemaking that had provided work for one-third of the people living in the valley had been replaced by the much lower cost production on Jacquard machines in France and Flanders.

[2] He found a job with the Magniac company who sent him to Canton in 1818 as a watch repairer; this was the sole Chinese port that tolerated European merchants and businessmen — the so-called “red-haired barbarians”.

Bovet adapted its production to the Chinese tradition of making gifts of valuable objects (statues, vases, horses even concubines) in pairs.

Once the political situation was back to normal, in 1840, the firm was reregistered as Bovet Frères et Cie.; the share capital amounted to one million francs.

Edouard Bovet died in 1849; he lived long enough to witness the triumph of the republic and the withdrawal of the Prussians in the previous year.

The succession was settled and the production for China continued; in 1855 Bovet was awarded a gold medal at the world exhibition in Paris for an absolutely identical pair of watches ordered by the Chinese emperor.