Christiaan van der Klaauw is a Dutch maker of astronomical watches founded in 1974 by Christiaan van der Klaauw (born 1944), who trained at the Leidse Instrumentmakers School and began building astronomical clocks at his own atelier in Joure, Friesland. In 2009 Daniël and Maria Reintjes took over the company and made astronomy its exclusive focus. Master watchmaker Pim Koeslag, previously at Frederique Constant and Ateliers deMonaco, joined in 2022 as majority shareholder and became CEO, and the Reintjes left the company in early 2025. The atelier is now based in Naarden, the Netherlands.
The brand is known for miniaturised planetarium displays. The CVDK Planetarium of 1999 contained what the brand calls the smallest mechanical planetarium in the world, and the atelier developed the planetarium mechanisms for Van Cleef & Arpels’ Midnight Planétarium and Lady Arpels Planétarium, the latter winning the Ladies’ Complication Prize at the 2018 GPHG. The CVDK Planetarium Eise Eisinga received the GPHG Calendar and Astronomy Prize in 2021. The Grand Planetarium Eccentric of 2024, which shows all eight planets, is the most complex watch the atelier has made, and a Sincere Platinum Jubilee Edition followed in 2025, the year of the brand’s 50th anniversary.
