Wound by the Room
A self-winding clock for a widowed brother
The ask
My brother lost his wife in August. She wound every clock in their house on Sunday mornings, and since then he has let them run down one by one. I'd like to give him one clock that keeps going without anyone's hand. Around $16,500, delivered quietly.
The gift
A Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos Classique, the clock that winds itself from the air. A sealed capsule of gas swells and contracts as the room warms and cools, and a change of one degree Celsius gives it about two days. Its spring holds about three hundred days. The Swiss government has long given it to visiting heads of state. We have it set level and started in his house, the card closed with a blind-embossed seal.
Why it's extraordinary
He can leave her clocks as she left them. This one needs no Sunday and no hand, because it draws its power from the small daily rise and fall of the temperature in the room where he lives.
The moment
Her clocks stand quiet in the hall, and beside them one keeps the hour, turning slowly in the warmth of the house as the seasons change.
A curator replies within one business day.
