(

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

from French, meaning blank, outline or sketch) is a term used in art to denote the first preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

Horology Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clo ...

clockmaking A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

and

watchmaking A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...

appropriated the term ébauche to refer to an incomplete or unassembled

watch movement A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

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 aesthetic visu ...

, 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 staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...

, fusée,

index Index (or its plural form 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 a Halo megastru ...

pawl A pawl is a movable lever that engages a fixed component to either prevent movement in one direction or restrain it altogether. As such, it is a type of latch and can also be considered a type of dog. It typically consists of a spring-loaded ...

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

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

and

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wi ...

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, dial, or hands. During the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, 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, 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 The quartz crisis was the upheaval in the watchmaking industry caused by the advent of quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced mechanical watches around the world.

. Most were unable to compete with the inexpensive

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

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 ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

, a subsidiary of the Swatch Group.

External links

ETASwatch Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ebauche Clocks Horology Timekeeping components