Making watches pretty with rare handcrafts

AS A GUARDIAN of grand traditions, especially in preserving artisanal skills that for centuries have adorned timepieces, Patek Philippe has rolled out 50 rare handcrafts timepieces in its latest watch collection The collection, showcased in an exhibition in Geneva in April, contains dome table clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches, including minute repeaters which pay respect to a suite of rare handcrafts that have long been intimately linked to watch-making artistry - manual engraving, various grand-feu enameling techniques, as well as gem setting and hand guilloching Low-relief hand-engraving is especially used in the case of pocket watches to make them look pretty.

Grand-feu techniques include miniature painting on enamel, cloisonne, champlevé, paillonne, finque, grisaille, plique-a-jour and Limoges enamel painting Its magic is unfolded on the backs of pocket watches or on wrist-watch dials with sublime reproductions of a Gauermann painting or the exquisite details of Portuguese azulejos In its new collection, Patek Philippe has also commissioned other very rare and challenging enamel arts, such as enamel reliefs with its special renderings which require the utmost in firing expertise - or the famous Longwy enamels on ceramics with its motifs framed in black.

"Italian Scenes" is one example in the collection that features cloisonné enamel dial on manually guilloched backgrounds enabled with miniature painting on enamel. . Source