Marie Antoinette’s revolutionary – on display at the Versailles exhibition

A remarkable pocket watch designed for Queen Marie Antoinette is among the standout artefacts featured in an exhibition celebrating the scientific advancements of the royal court at Versailles. The timepiece, one of the most intricate, beautiful, and expensive watches ever made, was commissioned in 1783 but was not completed until years after the Queen’s tragic execution.

“It took so long to create that it wasn’t finished until long after Marie Antoinette had met her unfortunate end,” explained Dr. Glyn Morgan, Curatorial Lead for Exhibitions at the Science Museum in London, in an interview with Reuters. He described the pocket watch as “the smartwatch of its time.”

This exquisite piece boasts an array of innovative features for its era, including a stopwatch, thermometer, shock absorber, and a self-winding mechanism. It also includes a perpetual calendar that adjusts for leap years, a striking feature that sounds the hour, quarter-hour, and minute, and an independent second hand capable of acting as a stopwatch.

Known as “complications” in horology, these features were groundbreaking at the time, showcasing the sophistication of the era’s watchmaking craftsmanship.

The exhibition, titled Versailles: Science and Splendour, explores the intersection of science and power in 17th and 18th-century France, highlighting how scientific knowledge, including the art of horology, became a symbol of status and influence for the French monarchy.

Dr. Morgan emphasised that the exhibition aims to broaden the traditional narrative of Versailles. “Everyone thinks they know the story of Versailles,” he said. “They think it’s a story of power, opulence, and maybe the French Revolution. This exhibition is about all of that, but it’s also about a revolution of a different sort—a scientific revolution.”