The LM Split Escapement from MB&F hosts a new series of 8 Pièces Uniques, engraved by Master Engraver Eddy Jaquet. For each unique piece, Eddy Jaquet has chosen novels that brought back memories from his own childhood. After rediscovering them anew, he created his own original sketches on templates of the dial plate, each one telling a story, sometimes from a whole chapter and other times from a simple paragraph
When Eddy Jaquet started engraving for MB&F in 2011, he was tasked with inscribing the names Kari Voutilainen and Jean-François Mojon on the bridges of the first Legacy Machine calibres. Even if the flowing letters and words were perfectly executed, they didn’t even begin to reveal the talent of this Neuchâtel-based engraver.
All this was to change in 2021 when Jaquet shared with MB&F that he would like to do more. An initial conversation led to a brainstorming session that turned into the creation of a series of eight unique pieces illustrating the novels and short stories of 19th-century French author Jules Verne. The timepiece that was chosen was the Legacy Machine Split Escapement as it had the largest surface available for engraving and exploring Jules Verne’s literary works.
In his preliminary research for the series, Jaquet devoured close to 60 novels and short stories, selecting some of Jules Verne’s best-loved works such as “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, but also some of the lesser-known stories such as “The Adventures of Captain Hatteras”. The resulting eight LM Split Escapement ‘Eddy Jaquet’ pieces were snapped up in a heartbeat, with the ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ edition winning the GPHG’s Artistic Crafts Award in 2021. The last piece in the series was delivered to its owner in 2022, which naturally raised the question “What next?”
Eight new literary inspired creations
MB&F decided to continue with the literary inspiration for a second series and presented Eddy with a list of 15 famous novels in the young fiction category, of which he was to choose eight works. Rediscovering the pages of each story over the following weeks and months, he finally made the following selection. “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe; “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas; “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper; “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling; “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London; “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville; “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson; and “Robin Hood” by an unknown author. Like the first Jules Verne series, none of the illustrations imagined by Jaquet are drawn from existing works of art. They are entirely conceived by the artist after reading the source books and viewing other creative works, such as films and comic books.
Each engraving is an intricate tableau of scenes and key moments from the stories, synthesised in the imagination of Jaquet and expressly designed to be interpreted through the medium of the LM SE movement. Beyond the list of 15 initial novels for consideration, MB&F gave Jaquet complete freedom in his creative process.
Not only did Jaquet have to exercise his creativity and engraving skill to the utmost, he was also obliged to practise his craft within the requirements and limitations set by the LM SE engine. The designated engraving space is the dial, which is in fact the baseplate of the movement; it presents a flat upper surface but is actually of variable thickness on its reverse side in order to accommodate the different movement components. Engraving the dial plate as if it was uniformly thick throughout was not possible – careful consideration had to be made as to where the thinner areas were, so as not to inadvertently puncture the artistic canvas if a particular section required deep-relief engraving.
From the production side, several adjustments were made to the original LM Split Escapement as well, so as to maximise the available engraving space and allow Jaquet to exhibit his savoir-faire to the fullest. New, openworked date and power-reserve subdials were created, along with wider dial plates. The bezel was redesigned to be slimmer, and the case dimensions reworked, in order to make space for the wider dial plate. Because the bezel and case dimensions were changed, a new dial crystal had to be produced, with a less pronounced curve to the dome, since its diameter was now increased.
This second LM Split Escapement ‘Eddy Jaquet’ series has so many levels of appreciation, with the most intricate details only revealing themselves to the viewer under a loupe. The timepieces in this second series come in stainless steel cases that have been paired with black subdials on a white gold base plate, framing Jaquet’s intricate engravings and bringing these treasured literary classics to life. Each timepiece is also presented with an original drawing signed by Jaquet, together with a Loupe System X6 macro lens, allowing each new owner to enter a whole new level of discovery.
