Australia hosted an exceptional event that brought together the three prestigious Houses of Breguet, Blancpain and Jaquet Droz. In collaboration with the magazine “Australian Financial Review,” their executives talked about the heritage they are representing, before discussing watchmaking in general. This evening took place in the presence of collectors all united by a common passion for high watchmaking, who then had the privilege to interact with the brand’s representatives.
Collectors Event in Sydney © Breguet
It isn’t true that somebody can only look at an antique pocket watch and instantly know how it was created. So much technique was lost over the ages – even in those instances once the tools and even technical drawings are available. It might be the epitome of a first-world issue (or even “Swiss dilemma,” as I call it), however there are individuals from the watch and luxury sector in general who dedicate much of the time and professions to learning how individuals made matters in the past.This search for misplaced techniques and processes to make art really began in the area of restoration. People needed to restore old art to appear newer again, and in a number of instances there aren’t a great deal of clues to go by. Autodidacts of the most brilliant caliber have managed to reinvent some wonderful things. From the watch industry, where “old” is often the new “brand new,” the soul of rediscovering the past is a profound part of the culture of several brands. Perhaps especially at firms including Jaquet Droz Butterfly Watch Replica whose namesake died a few hundred years ago.Going back to the watch, the face that frames the figure eight-style dials is decorated by what they call a paillonnée enameling technique. Here we have a surface that’s textured, painted, and then set using a run of solid gold “paillons” that together create an attractive geometric pattern. These small gold appliques are produced in-house by Jaquet Droz, as nobody else apparently has the skills to make them more. In all likelihood, conventional ones from the past were created using a casting technique. Jaquet Droz even admits that some of the first modern paillonnée enameling watches utilize original paillons in the past which they were able to recover in various manners. Finally, they had to produce new ones and now do this in-house in little batches.I’ve personally visited Jaquet Droz’s small, albeit remarkable “artistic technique” studio that looks like a combination between a research and development laboratory and an art recovery studio. Approaches and styles are analyzed to see regarding the ideal way of recreating this and other missing art which we can appreciate in new watches. It’s a good deal of little details, but something worth knowing about when considering an watch priced at more than100,000. That is a good deal of money, but there are certainly worse ways to spend it to a luxury timepiece.
