Parmigiani Fleurier, the Swiss brand of luxury watchmakers, it’s not an ordinary watchmaker brand, and you’ll find out why. The Swiss watchmaker brand is one of the few of its kind in the world that has a Restoration workshop. This information would be extremely random if there was not for their newest project that completely blow us away.
About year ago, the mastermind restorers at Parmigiani Fleurier were faced with a great challenge when they had to bring to life a completely destroyed, but unique object from the Sandoz Familly Collection: the double barrel pistol and its songbird. A rare automaton, created circa 1815 by the popular Frères Rochat, with a design resembling a cavalry pistol.
Considering the fact that the automaton is 200 years old, by the time the Swiss watchmakers got their hands on it, it was far from functional. One year worth of work, the restorers who worked from scratch, successfully managed to bring back to life a wondrous object that hides a secret behind the trigger. The painstakingly decorated pistol, restored to its former glory looks just like a masterpiece. But that’s only a part of it when you pull the trigger, the pistol releases a hummingbird that instead of the firearm’s traditional sound, replaces it with a sweet song of the bird.
Parmigiani Fleurier was started in 1996 in Val-de-Travers. Founder Michel Parmigiani had conceived the brand as far back as 1976 through his work restoring watchmaking artefacts and his detailed knowledge of historical mechanical clocks and watches.
Take a look at the below short documentary of the double barrel pistol that instead of a bullet releases a hummingbird. Pulling the trigger has never sounded better :
As we said earlier, this restoration project can be certainly entitled a “masterpiece.”
For more info about this amazing project check out Parmigiani Fleurier official site here : Parmigiani.