Jacques-Auguste Détour

Jacques-Auguste Détour (born May 16, 1759) is one of the finest Parisian clockmakers of the last quarter of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century. The son of Jean Détour, burgher of Paris, and Marie-Catherine Guillon, he served eight years of apprenticeship in the workshop of Antoine Cronier in February 1776. While not always mentioned in horological encyclopedias and dictionaries, he nevertheless enjoyed a brilliant career; the most important collectors possessed examples of his work. Clocks made by Détour are listed in the early 19^th century probate inventories of Mlle de Belleforières de Soyecourt, the wife of Emmanuel-Dieudonné comte de la Tour en Woere, and Xavier-Pierre Dedelay de Blancmesnil.