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https://www.barrons.com/articles/metiers-dart-elevate-timepieces-to-rare-decorative-objects-01663084100

Watchmaking’s métiers d’art (decorative crafts) are as old as watchmaking itself. When mechanical watches appeared simultaneously in Italy, Germany, and France at the turn of the 16th century, they were expensive, low-precision objects that flaunted elaborate artistry and embellishment—engraving, enameling, and jeweling, the traditional métiers d’art. Since then, decorative crafts have evolved with new twists on the old techniques and expanded with additional crafts, such as marquetry and micromosaics.

Only a handful of brands invest considerably in the production of rarefied métiers d’art creations. Among them are some of Switzerland’s oldest and most revered names, including Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, and Jaquet Droz.

“For five years we have really been concentrating our efforts on métiers d’art by presenting a new series every two years and producing very few quantities,” said Christian Selmoni, Vacheron Constantin’s style and heritage director, as he unveiled the new Tribute to Great Civilizations series, produced in partnership with the Louvre museum, in Paris last May. “For us, métiers d’art became a kind of permanent challenge in execution and elevating our level of craftsmanship.”

The oldest continually operating watch brand, founded in 1755, Vacheron Constantin maintains its own métiers workshops at its headquarters on the outskirts of Geneva. The brand also commissions independent artisans in other crafts, some of which were engaged in producing the Great Civilizations series. Working with the Louvre’s curators and historians, Vacheron Constantin selected four significant works in the museum’s collections representing the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, Egypt of the Pharaohs, Hellenistic Greece of Alexander the Great’s successors, and Imperial Rome, then recreated them on watch dials using elaborate, layered métiers d’art. 

Each model, limited to five pieces, has a multilayered dial built off a decorative base overlaid with a transparent sapphire crystal disc with relevant text in gold transferred using a vacuum process and a sculpted gold depiction of the artwork as the focal point. To give the artisans the biggest canvas possible, the movement has no hands—hours, minutes, day, and date appear in apertures around the periphery of the dial. 

The pieces recall Vacheron’s 2007 Masques collection produced with Geneva’s Barbier-Mueller Museum, a collection that Selmoni refers to as a “cornerstone moment” for the brand at a time when the market was inundated with big black watches. “We started imagining the world of watchmaking as more than just watchmaking, but as something truly very innovative and creative,” he explains. 

Patek Philippe similarly tends its secret garden of Rare Handcrafts pieces, including enameled dome clocks, pocket watches, and wristwatches, each extremely rare, if not one of a kind. 

While many enthusiasts clamor for hard-to-get stainless-steel Nautilus sport watches, an elite group of collectors seek authentic works of art produced by Switzerland’s masters using techniques that date back centuries. Such pieces are acquired through an application process.

Patek Philippe’s one-of-a-kind cloisonné dome table clocks were introduced in 1955 and quietly continue as sought-after collector’s items. Originally, they were solar-powered photoelectric clocks, but in the 1960s, the solar versions were phased out in favor of quartz movements. 

Patek Philippe’s enamel expertise is also evident in the current collection’s new Ref. 5231G world time watch in white gold depicting a map of Southeast Asia and Oceania in Grand Feu cloisonné enamel at the center of the dial. These coveted enamel world timers decorated with maps of the continents that simultaneously display time in the world’s 24 primary time zones date back to the 1940s when Patek Philippe started producing small quantities. Geneva watchmaker Louis Cottier devised the mechanism in the 1930s and offered it to Patek Philippe, which patented it in 1959.

Those rare vintage pieces are highly coveted in the auction market. Even though new variations continue to be added to the current collection, production is extremely limited due to the level of complexity involved. Since each dial is individually handcrafted, subtle variations make every watch unique.

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s world time pieces date to the 1930s, and this year it introduced an impressive Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948, embellished by the artisans of the brand’s Métiers Rares Atelier. Fusing complicated high horology with métiers d’art, the watch is the first to combine a world time function with a flying tourbillon that orbits around the dial once every 24 hours, indicating the time in the world’s 24 primary time zones.

In keeping with tradition, a map of the world is front and center on the dial. But rather than a flattened image, the map as viewed from a North Pole perspective floats above the dial on a domed skeleton formed by the longitudes and latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Artisans cut the contours of the continents from a sheet of white gold and decorate with champlevé enamel, a process that involves filling the cavities with vitreous enamel. 

“The enameling of a single dome requires the work of an artisan for 55 hours and measures only 25.5mm in diameter,” says Catherine Renier, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s CEO. “Only a few artisans in the Atelier des Métiers Rares are masters in this remarkable expertise.”

The oceans are depicted with a disc of blue translucent lacquer applied over a guilloché pattern suggesting waves and the lunar influence on its tides. 

While the more elaborate and esoteric métiers creations admittedly appeal to a very particular client, such pieces play a significant role to maisons such as Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, and Jaeger-LeCoultre with long legacies in arts and crafts. 

“There is a great tradition at Vacheron Constantin of this combination of watchmaking art and decorative crafts,” Selmoni says. “We feel this is our responsibility to maintain, develop, create, and innovate using these crafts, but using them in the context of the days in which we are living.” 

This article appears in the September 2022 issue of Penta magazine.

Watchmaking’s métiers d’art (decorative crafts) are as old as watchmaking itself.

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