As the only family run watchmaking business left in Geneva, Patek Philippe sees itself as guardian of the city’s great watchmaking traditions, an important element of which is métiers d’art — the specialist decorative techniques. When the watchmaker, known for the sophistication of its mechanical complications, adds this distinctive expertise, the results are often museum-level special.
The development of the métiers d’art in Geneva can be traced to the arrival of French Huguenot artisans, who came seeking a Protestant safe haven in the 17th century. They added their artistic skills to the flourishing watchmaking profession already established there. Over the next four centuries techniques were developed and pioneered, deployed to personalise a pocket watch or clock. But workshops producing Grand Feu and cloisonné enamelling, guillochage, engraving, miniature painting and wood marquetry have in more recent decades been in decline — partly because of the time and resources required for this painstaking work to be carried out. This, in turn, has led to the dying out of skills and knowledge.
Patek Philippe’s registers show that it has prized these rare handcraft techniques since its inception in 1839. And since Sterns took over the company in 1932, the family have committed to preserving and perpetuating these artisanal skills — even continuing to produce them when no one was really buying them to ensure the savoir-faire would not be lost. Today, the watchmaker continues to nurture the traditions by bringing master craftsmen into its workshops. It also pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved artistically by setting increasingly complicated challenges to maintain the master craftsmen’s dexterity — all the while ensuring the crafts are passed on to a new generation.
“You don’t produce such pieces for business reasons,” says Patek Philippe’s president, Thierry Stern. “You must be passionate and appreciate the product, the craft and the technique that goes inside.” And what better way to safeguard these ancient skills for the future, the company asks, than to practise them regularly?
The cream of such work — highly decorative wristwatches, pocket watches and table clocks — is showcased annually in the Rare Handcraft collection. This comprises unique and limited editions, shown briefly in the salon at Patek Philippe’s Rue du Rhône showroom overlooking Lake Geneva, before heading off to private collectors. But this year, for the first time, the exhibition is also being brought to the newly renovated Bond Street Salons in London next month. Some 82 pieces will be on show, including 43 wristwatches, 27 dome clocks and nine pocket watches, dressed in refined crafts.
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These include the alchemy of enamelling that happens during repeated firings in a furnace, while guilloché is created by an engine turner machine creating narrow and geometric engraved patterns or motifs. The art of hand engraving, carried out under a binocular microscope, is the closest to free-hand drawing of all the crafts, enhancing enamel work or micro marquetry. This is like a micro-scale jigsaw of tiny pieces of veneer meticulously cut and assembled with glue and paste.
There’s an eclectically wide source of inspiration, ranging from “American Trains” in Grand Feu cloissoné enamel depicting steam locomotives and New York skyscrapers on the larger surface of a dome table clock, to a tribute to Claude Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond. Look out for the group of pieces celebrating Hawaii and its surfing culture, including the Calatrava wristwatch “Morning on the Beach”, which features a surfer in wood micro marquetry.
Nature is portrayed in a panoply of pieces, from an elegant white egret, also composed in wood marquetry, on the back of a pocket watch, to a realistic marquetry portrait of “Bear and Salmon”. There’s also a celebration of landscaped gardens from over the world, featuring Grand Feu cloisonné enamel decoration to conjure up a verdant scene and the shimmer of water. Other works have also been inspired by aquatic landscapes, including a view of Venice’s Rialto Bridge by Canaletto interpreted in miniature painting on enamel with hand engraving.
While exploring the exhibition, visitors can observe artisans working on engraving, marquetry and guilloché, a chance to see at first hand how much expertise — not to mention a steady hand — is required to undertake these exacting techniques. It’s an interesting opportunity — for the collector, connoisseur, enthusiast or just the curious — to peek behind the curtain and gain an insight into the fastidious world of métiers d’art watch decoration.
Open June 7-16, 1st Floor, Bond Street House, 14 Clifford Street, London W1S; free entry, but register early at patek.com
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Direction: Mona Tehrani
DOP: Leo Element
