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| Self-Made Watchmaker and Astronomer |
Christiaan van der Klaauw, a man living in the far north Frisian area of Holland, did not set out to be a watchmaker. Born in 1944 in Leiden, located in southern Holland, he had always had an interest in things technical as a boy. Later, he studied precision mechanics at the school set up by the Kamerling Onnes Laboratory in Leiden. This laboratory was named for Prof. Kamerling Onnes, the Nobel Prize winner who first discovered how to make helium liquid. Here, the young van der Klaauw gained experi-ence in technical work and finding solutions to difficult problems.
It is no secret that people interested in things technical also have a predilection for clocks or watches. Christiaan van der Klaauw's very technical mind could not let clocks remain at rest and he began to autodidactically spend much of his spare time on clockmaking. As a number of his professors at the Leiden laboratory were clock collectors, van der Klaauw became their technical advisor, renovating and overhauling their clocks. He gathered information on vintage Dutch clockmaking in Leiden institutions such as the physics museum and observed the works of great Dutch masters at length.
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Round about the age of thirty, he felt the need to make his avocation into a vocation and became a technical specialist at a Frisian clock factory, moving north. Upon finding suitable workshop space in the city of Joure, he eventually started a workshop of his own.
Like many other members of the prestigious A.H.C.I., Christiaan van der Klaauw began his horological career as a clockmaker. Using antiquated techniques, he first created a Dutch stoel clock sporting a calendar, rising sun, ebb and flow, and chimes that played thrice an hour. The painting and decorations on the cases were done by van der Klaauw himself, though the hand-decorated dials were created by specialized artisans.
In honor of van der Klaauw's first Basel appearance with the A.H.C.I. in 1990, he created an astronomical clock he christened the Planeto Astrolabium. He began with the timepiece's encasing, crafted of copper and gilt with 24-karat gold. The clock runs on an eight-day platform escapement movement with an extra movement
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| The Planetarium 2000 is van der Klaauw's self-pro-fessed "smallest planetarium in the world" and retails for a mere $21,700 in 18-karat rose gold. |
The Astrolabium 2000 derives its name from astrolabe, an instrument that was used to observe and calculate the position of celestial bodies before the sextant was invented ($32,500 in rose gold). |
The Eclipse model does just what the name promises displaying solar and lunar eclipses, and retails for $19,200 in 18-karat rose gold. Van der Klaauw that it is possible to make a watch move men natural occurrence that reoccurs on a regular basis. |
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Christiaan van der Klaauw Horloge Atelier b.v.
Businesspark Friesland-West 47
8466 SL Nijehaske
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)513 - 624 906
www.klaauw.com
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