This very fine and aesthetically pleasing chronometer was made when Winnerl was at the height of his career, having received a gold medal for his chronometers at the 1839 exhibition. His mechanism for a flyback chronograph with concentric hands invented in 1838 was perfected in 1840. It is interesting that the present watch can be dated accurately to 1840, the mainspring is signed and dated and the case bears a mark that was used as of July 1840. Breguet, for whom Winnerl worked in Paris around 1830, was the first watchmaker known to have used platinum in his watches. The present watch has platinum weights and screws on the balance. These were used because the specific gravity of platinum afforded greater inertia than other metals.

Joseph-Tadeus Winnerl.
Was born at Murech (Austrian Styria) on 25 January 1799. He left his country when very young to visit the principal cities of Europe in which clockmaking was practiced. Thus he worked for Kessels in Altona, and Jürgensen in Copenhagen. He arrived in Paris in 1829, where he was employed by the best clockmakers, in particular Breguet. He chose France as his country of adoption and was naturalized. Towards 1832 he set up shop in the passage de Lorette in Paris, and established a workshop there for making marine chronometers. At the Exhibition of the Products of French Industry in 1839, the Central Jury awarded him a gold medal. In 1843 he presented to the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and Sciences an anchor escapement modified for clocks, which was the subject of a report by Baron Seguier. That same year he presented to the Society a split seconds recorder of his invention.At the 1844 Exhibition, the Central Jury awarded him an addition to the gold medal that he had already obtained in 1839, and he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. At the Universal Exhibition of 1855, the Jury awarded him a grand Prize, and he was raised to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor. Appointed clockmaker to the Paris Observatory in 1850, he presented a "Mémoire sur les pendules de précision" to the Society of Paris Clockmakers in 1857, as well as another entitled: "Règle de la construction de l'échappement duplex et modification de cet échappement pour l'appliquer aux montres à roues de rencontre" .Elected Councilor of the City of Paris in 1859, he was successively re-elected until 1870, when he sold his business. Appointed Expert Clockmaker to the Navy by a ministerial decision of 17 November 1873, he retained this office until his death. In 1876 he presented to the Academy of Science a compensated pendulum for chronometers, with a mechanism for correcting secondary errors at intermediate temperatures. Winnerl died on 25 January 1886 at Andresy, a small town in the Seine et Oise where he had settled soon after closing his business. His work consists of about 550 marine chronometers, pocket chronometers, split second recorders, and astronomical long case clocks of which two had been made for the Paris Observatory, and two for the Navy Depot. To this list should be added a large number of mantelpiece clocks, and watches made at the request of collectors of fine clockwork.