(

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

from French, meaning blank, outline or sketch) is a preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

Horology Chronometry or horology () is the science studying the measurement of time and timekeeping. Chronometry enables the establishment of standard measurements of time, which have applications in a broad range of social and scientific areas. ''Hor ...

, clockmaking and watchmaking appropriated the term ébauche to refer to an incomplete or unassembled watch movement and its associated components. The French term is regularly used by English-speaking artists and

art historians The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

, as well as horologists and hobbyists.

Art

One early criticism of Impressionist painting was that its practitioners sought to elevate the status of the ébauche to the level of finished painting.

Horology

Until about 1850, the watchmaker’s ébauche consisted of two plates with pillars and bars, the

barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden stave (wood), staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers ...

, fusée,

index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...

, pawl and ratchet-wheel, along with a few assembling screws. These parts were all roughly filed and milled. The

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

were manufactured in a special workshop. The ébauche was finished by watchmakers in a finishing shop. The (literally "assortment" in English) are the parts of a watch other than the ébauche, in particular the regulating organs and include the balance, hairspring or spiral, escape wheel, anchor lever and pallet stones or jewels. The modern ébauche is a jewelled watch movement, without its regulating organs,

mainspring A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon—commonly spring steel—used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. ''Winding'' the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in ...

, dial, or hands. During the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

, new components were introduced by the

Waltham Watch Company The Waltham Watch Company, also known as the American Waltham Watch Co. and the American Watch Co., was a company that produced about 40 million watches, clocks, speedometers, compasses, time delay fuses, and other precision instruments in the Un ...

and the development of the

American System of Watch Manufacturing The American system of watch manufacturing is a set of manufacturing techniques and best-practices to be used in the manufacture of watches and timepieces. It is derived from the American system of manufacturing techniques (also called "armory pr ...

, establishing the base of modern watch manufacture. Historic producers of ébauche movements have included companies such as A. Schild, Peseux, Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF), Gallet & Cie Fabrique d’horlogerie Electa, Landeron, Valjoux, Venus, France Ébauches and Lemania. Many of these producers have gone out of business over the past few decades, succumbing to the Quartz Revolution. Most were unable to compete with the inexpensive

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

electronic movements produced by Asian manufacturers, which flooded the market during the 1980s. The remaining ébauche producers today are almost all owned by

ETA Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...

, a subsidiary of the Swatch Group.

References

External links

ETASwatch Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ebauche Clocks Horology Timekeeping components