High watchmaking brand Jaquet Droz is known for its stunning and audacious timepieces. In welcoming the Chinese Year of the Snake that begins on January 29, Jaquet Droz has unveiled two unique interpretations. A bespoke unique timepiece designed collaboratively with French fashion designer Chantal Thomass has also been debuted by the maison – part of its audacious vision of animated haute horlogerie, custom-designed and bringing together exceptional movements and next generation materials, prioritising a unique and personalised experience. Each piece is created by and for a specific collector
Ophidian Hour
For its Ophidian Hour timepieces, Jaquet Droz has designed its first piece without any hands. The unique pieces are 41 mm in diameter and made from red gold, with hours and minutes that are shown by dragging discs. The hours are indicated by the head of the snake. The minutes by its tail.
The animal’s long body is reminiscent of the calligraphy for the Chinese character for happiness. It is sculpted from five blocks of solid white gold that are assembled with perfect continuity. The snake has an impressive presence on the dial; at its highest point, it measures 4 mm, literally coming to rest on the sapphire glass, almost within touching distance.
The suppleness of a snake’s body offers a creative simplicity that belies the difficulty of this form that is entirely created from smooth curves. It offers so many surfaces that it was almost impossible to add enamel work, since pre-fired enamel is a powder that, in theory, cannot be applied nor held on the entire circular surface of the animal at the same time. Yet Jaquet Droz craftsmen managed it. And they even went further.
Because in addition to enamel, which follows the slightest undulation in the snake’s body, it offers perfectly graduated colouring, extending from light to dark green, alternating according to the model with an intense blood red. The unusually precise enamel is applied in shallow cavities in the gold form. It is fired and then polished, and the white gold surfaces are also hand polished. This creates a “Ruyi” motif, interpreted by John Howe, which traditionally attracts protection and good fortune.
The two interpretations place the snake back in the heart of its natural habitat, in line with the historic naturalistic approach that has inspired Jaquet Droz since the 18th century. The first, luxurious dial is mother-of-pearl. It is delicately engraved with a bamboo motif, then filled with a graduated miniature painting.
The second dial is made from a mineral – another long-standing artisanal tradition from Jaquet Droz. But for this second unique piece, the choice of rock is also something special: the Sonora Sunrise. This is also a first: It has never been used by Jaquet Droz before. The atelier has chosen it for the presence of two very complementary colours within the same fragment; a soft green with black inclusions and a blood red flecked with dark marbling. Finding such a piece with such pronounced colours on such a small surface is no less difficult than cutting it into a dial only 0.8 mm thick.
Both pieces are presented on a green rubber strap. The sapphire back reveals a glimpse of the red gold oscillating weight that features a mother-of-pearl or Sonora Sunrise insert decorated with a Ruyi motif, driving a movement with a silicon balance spring with 68 hour power reserve.
Ronde des Baisers timepiece
The Jaquet Droz X Chantal Thomass collaboration is unique piece – an automaton set with diamonds and minerals, and engraved with the written signature of the artist on its oscillating weight – that was unveiled at the FAB Paris art fair (Fine Art La Biennale) in November in the presence of Jaquet Droz and Chantal Thomass.
Chantal Thomass wanted a timepiece dominated by her colours: black, white, red. She opted for different materials that would each bring texture and volume. On an onyx watch dial, a perspective image of a chequerboard is created from cubes of black onyx and Cacholong, used for the first time by Jaquet Droz. The marquetry work in stone is created with 34 individual cubes measuring between 2.25 mm and 0.45 mm in height. They are machined and assembled individually, by hand, in 5 different heights in order to accentuate the 3D perspective.
Around this central design is a moving peripheral disc. Taking the shape of a spiral, it links a gloss black disc that coils around another disc, which is hand set with 376 diamonds of 0.63 cts in a snow-set design. A single press of the pushbutton at 3 o’clock starts the movement: the exterior disc completes one revolution in 30 seconds, for a maximum of 4 minutes (8 revolutions), and can be started or stopped on request by pressing the same push-button. The automaton part uses two barrels, while the timekeeping part uses two additional independent barrels for 68 hours of power reserve.
In order to break up a composition that plays with the effects of symmetry, Chantal Thomass has taken 11 of the red pairs of lips so dear to her and placed them across the dial. Ten are gold, hand-sculpted appliques that are placed on the moving peripheral (and therefore, like the entirety of the disc, pass below the watch dial). The 11th is hand-painted, used as a signature for Chantal Thomass, placed below that of Jaquet Droz, set at midday and with two gold hands passing above.
