Jaeger-LeCoultre supports restoration crafts in its own ateliers and at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice
July 13, 2016: For over a decade, Jaeger-LeCoultre has been a partner to the Mostra, Venice’s International Film Festival, as well as a patron of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, sponsoring restoration work there since 2013. During the 73rd Mostra, the Grande Maison will give all visitors a chance to take part in an initiative to increase its donations toward this restoration.
Participants are asked to draw a heart in a digital guestbook provided by the facility, which reflects your style and inspires you. By sketching this symbol, each visitor to the Jaeger-LeCoultre reception and exhibition area triggers a donation by the Maison towards the restoration of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s ambassador Carmen Chaplin, the first to take part in the project, drew a heart which was engraved on the back of a Reverso watch and will be displayed for the occasion.
The Scuola Grande di San Rocco, built as an institution, is unique for its peerless collection of paintings by Italian painter Tintoretto (1518-1594). Located in the San Polo district of Venice, the fraternity was founded in 1478 and dedicated to Saint Roch, patron saint of the plague-stricken, to fight epidemics and bring succor to the diseased population. Thanks to Jaeger-LeCoultre, visitors can now enjoy improved lighting which showcases Tintoretto’s light sensitive works. A new LED system - projecting fewer of the infrared and ultraviolet rays which cause colors to deteriorate over time - has been installed in the Sala dell’Albergo.
The second part of the sponsorship program concerns the Scuola’s marbles, specifically those in the Sala Capitolare and the imperial staircase, which are being restored. Jaeger-LeCoultre protects not only natural world heritage sites, as through its collaboration with UNESCO, but also artistic heritage, demonstrated by its support for the restoration of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.
Each day in its ateliers, artisans restore timepieces from the past to their former glory, working not only on the mechanisms but also the Métiers Rares® of gem setting, enameling and engraving. The Manufacture provides this repair service for all watches and clocks ever made there, in keeping with the principle of absolute respect for the piece's history and integrity. It even provides a service which reproduces watch components which are no longer made, using original drawings. During the Mostra, the Maison will exhibit pictures of the recent restoration of a pendant watch designed by Antoine LeCoultre, the Manufacture’s founder, for his wife Zélie LeCoultre. It was the first model to use the crown winding system for setting the time and winding the watch which replaced the key that had previously been required. The Grande Maison’s watchmakers have given a new life to this watch, which bears the following inscription by Zélie’s grandson Jacques-David LeCoultre on the case back: Souvenir dema chère grand-mère Zélie LeCoultre (In memory of my dear grandmother, Zélie LeCoultre).
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