This highly ingenious and unique clock with an incredible five-year duration is both technically interesting and very elegant. As inscribed on the dial, the clock was invented by and constructed by Hubert Sarton, probably as a showpiece to demonstrate his practical and mathematical prowess, or perhaps for his own use or special commission. The enormous going barrel is housed within a hidden compartment in the base and via a three wheel train drives a rotating nib push-fitted to a small gimbal and steel rod which reaches up to the escapement and fits to a rod with two pins that drives a contrate wheel and then in turn the escapement. As expected, all the wheels are of very high teeth count and the two trains have a total of seven wheels. The idea of a long-duration precision clock is increased accuracy, once the clock has been wound and regulated there is no need to interrupt the timekeeping by the action of winding. Due to the slow action and large count wheels, friction is also reduced.

Hubert Sarton (1748-1828) Was born in Paris. Around 1772 he became a pupil of J. Le Roy. Sarton subsequently settled in Liège, where he died at the age of 80. In the late 1770s, he made a trip to Le Locle, where he was able to examine self-winding watches made by Abraham-Louis Perrelet, Afterwards, upon his return to Paris, he filed a document with the Paris Académie des Sciences, dated December 23, 1778. It concerned self-winding watches with fusee and chain and verge escapement. In 1782, Sarton published a text entitled "Description de plusieurs pièces d'horlogerie". Hubert Sarton made clocks with carillons, regulator escapements with compensation, and clocks with decimal indications.