Antoni Patek. From émigré to king of watches

„Watches were not only devices for measuring time. One could say they were a kind of patriotic manifesto. Antoni Patek and Czapek adorned the cases of their timepieces with religious motifs – for example images of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, Our Lady of Częstochowa – and with portraits of Polish national heroes such as General Tadeusz Kościuszko or Prince Józef Poniatowski. Every patriot – whether remaining by the Vistula or one of their fellow exiles – wanted such a watch, wanted to show that something still connected them to that country.”

— Beniamin Czapla, economic historian

A Dzień Dobry TVN feature with Beniamin Czapla – a conversation about Antoni Patek as a nineteenth-century Polish entrepreneur and about how the history of a firm and brand meets the economic and social history of the Great Emigration.

The author of “Antoni Patek. Watchmaker to the Kings” shows that timepieces could carry identity, and that building an enterprise in exile belongs to a wider story of economy and society in the 19th century.