A charming snake glides out from Arnold & Son
Combining a manufacture calibre with a large astronomical moon – one of its specialities – with an aventurine glass dial base – one of its signatures – and a wealth of delicately worked artistic crafts – one of its recurring themes – Arnold & Son presents a masterful interpretation of the Year of the Snake
According to the traditional Chinese calendar, 2025 is the Year of the Wooden Snake and will be ruled by the words perspicacity, intelligence, and prudence. In its honour, Arnold & Son is creating Perpetual Moon 41.5 “Year of the Snake”: a series of eight timepieces in red gold. The Year of the Wooden Snake starts on January 29, 2025. Under this element, the reptile foretells transformation and a need for self-improvement, combined with energy and introspection. It is a year of negotiations, shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Arnold & Son is celebrating the Chinese zodiac calendar with Perpetual Moon 41.5 “Year of the Snake”.
The dial of the new “Chinese calendar” limited edition timepiece centres on an undulating snake. It faces the observer, wrapped around the branch of a tree that offers innumerable benefits: Ginkgo biloba. The animal looks on calmly, nestled peacefully in a nocturnal setting.
The snake is delicately hand-engraved into a block of 18-carat rose gold and set against a blue aventurine glass dial. Its fine scales, forked tongue, and broad, flat head are depicted with realism. The large, mother-of-pearl moon, also rendered realistically with its shadows, is overlaid with Super-LumiNova. It illuminates an aventurine glass sky and is surrounded by the constellations of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia, which are also painted with luminescent material.
On the case back, a secondary display of the phases of the moon allows fast and accurate adjustment of the complication. The manually wound calibre that powers Perpetual Moon 41.5 Red Gold “Year of the Snake” is able to track the age of the moon with exceptional accuracy. The total duration of a lunar cycle is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds.
Arnold & Son has approached this so closely that it would take 122 years for this movement, if constantly wound up, to accumulate a 24-hour discrepancy between the display and astronomical reality. Like all Arnold & Son’s movements, the A&S1512 calibre was entirely developed, produced, decorated, assembled, adjusted and cased up at the manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds. This calibre uses two barrels and has an oscillation frequency of 3 Hz, giving a 90-hour power reserve.
