The Longitude
Voyage Fait par Ordre du Roi, 1768–1769
The sea trial of Berthoud’s marine clocks, in print.
- Work
- Voyage fait par ordre du roi… pour éprouver en mer les horloges marines
- Maker
- Ferdinand Berthoud
- Date
- 1768–1769
- Held by
- via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old)
- License
- Public domain
- Master
- 1190×1684px
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
Sizes are capped to what this piece’s real source scan honestly supports — we never enlarge past the engraving.
$29.00
The story
Ferdinand Berthoud was Harrison's great continental rival — clockmaker to the French crown, author of the monumental Essai sur l'horlogerie, and builder of the horloges marines France sent to sea by royal order in 1768 to be proven against the ocean itself. This leaf from the published account of that voyage is the French longitude story in one printed page: the state, the ship, and the clock, joined in a single experiment to make the sea navigable by time.
See it on your wall
The mechanism, made for a room
Voyage Fait par Ordre du Roi, 1768–1769 printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of an open-access work held by via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old), served under the institution’s stated license (Public domain) — source linked below.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper or 400gsm canvas; framed pieces sit behind acrylic.
- The artwork is never cropped and never enlarged past its scan — sizes stop where the engraving stops holding.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Source: via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old) — the scan this reproduction is printed from, and the page documenting its public-domain / open-access status. We are unaffiliated with any watch manufacturer, past or present.
