Daniel Vaucher

Daniel Vaucher, whose work is also catalogued under the name Daniel Vauchez and the signature inscription Vauchez en la Cité à Paris, is documented in museum and auction records as a maker of gold, enamel, and gem set pocket watches active in Paris in the second half of the eighteenth century. A signed example dated to circa 1775 is recorded by specialist horological researchers, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York catalogues a watch made for the French market with a Geneva movement under his name. That Met description covers the object's movement and intended market rather than stating a personal nationality for the maker. Other horological sources trace his family to Fleurier, Switzerland, and describe him working in Paris from around 1760 to 1790, while a New York Times report on a record 2010 sale describes him as a Swiss watchmaker. His personal nationality is not conclusively established in the available record. The Metropolitan Museum's catalog entry also lists a birth year of 1716 for this maker; no death date is recorded there or elsewhere in the available sources.

No school, apprenticeship, or formal training is documented for Vaucher in the sources available for this profile, which is typical of eighteenth century workshop makers whose personal biographies were rarely recorded outside their signed output. Because his documented birth year, 1716, and his working life fall entirely within the eighteenth century, Vaucher is understood not to be living today. However, no specific death date, place, or cause is documented in the available record, and this profile does not assert one.

Readers should also note that the Artprice database lists a separate, modern entry for a Daniel Vaucher born in 1953. Available sources give no indication that this modern namesake is related to the eighteenth century Paris maker described here, and the two should not be conflated.

Available sources contain no exact, attributable critical quotations about Vaucher's work from named critics in major art or auction publications. Discussion of his output appears primarily in specialist horological literature and auction house cataloguing rather than in art criticism, and centers on questions of attribution and signature variants (Vaucher versus Vauchez) rather than on aesthetic or art historical evaluation.

The highest documented auction price for a work attributed to Daniel Vaucher is CHF 699,000, paid for a gold pocket watch signed Vauchez at a Christie's watch auction in Geneva in 2010, as reported by The New York Times. The exact day of that sale is not given in the available source and is not asserted here, and no pre sale estimate could be confirmed.

No other Vaucher or Vauchez auction results could be independently verified for this profile. The 2010 Geneva result is the only price that can be confirmed from available sources and should be treated as a single documented data point rather than evidence of a broader price trend. Vaucher's market activity is confined to the antique watch and horology trade; no painting, sculpture, or fine art gallery market is documented for him.

The public record for Daniel Vaucher is thin and carries real identification risk. His work is catalogued under at least two name forms (Vaucher and Vauchez), his personal nationality is not conclusively documented, and no catalogue raisonne or centralized archive exists to consolidate attribution. Collectors should also take care not to confuse this eighteenth century Paris maker with an unrelated, modern namesake recorded in the Artprice database. In the absence of a catalogue raisonne, attribution should rely on museum grade cataloguing, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's record, and on assessment by specialist horological auction houses rather than on name matching alone.