Vacheron Constantin collaborates with the Louvre on a new series of watches in its Métiers d’Art collection dedicated to the great civilizations of Antiquity. The luxury watchmaker’s designers and creators joined forces with the museum’s teams to select the main themes of ancient civilizations, four major works representing them, and the craft techniques to be used to pay due homage to the masterpieces. Those selected were the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, the Egypt of the Pharaohs, the Hellenistic Greece of Alexander the Great’s successors and Imperial Rome. Each of these emblematic masterpieces conserved in the Louvre is reproduced in the form of a miniature sculpted gold applique that graces the watch dials of Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations.
To power these Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations watches, Vacheron Constantin has selected its self-winding Manufacture Calibre 2460 G4/2, which features four discs indicating the hours, minutes, days and dates. The apertures for reading the time and calendar indications, positioned around the dial periphery, thus leave a vast field of expression for the artisans. The watchmaker gets rid of watch hands in order not to disturb the view of these miniature masterpieces. On the back of the movement, beating at a rate of 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations per hour) and comprising 237 components, the oscillating weight features a depiction – based on an 18th-century lithograph – of the east facade of the Louvre and its magnificent colonnade inspired by the work of Louis Le Vau and Claude Perrault, based on an 18th-century etching. The matrix of the design was hand-sculpted and then used to stamp the twenty oscillating weights composing the series.
Each watch incorporates a subdial adorned with motifs drawn from the decorative arts of the same period. This ornamentation, also inspired by the antiquities in the Louvre, was entrusted to master artisans in the fields of enamelling, stone marquetry, engraving and stone micro-mosaics. In addition, texts representative of the periods concerned are reproduced in their original form – cuneiform writing, hieroglyphs, ancient Greek and Latin – by metallisation on the sapphire crystal bearing the sculpted applique. The siliceous glazed bricks decoration frieze of the Palace of Darius; a sphinx and paintings from an Egyptian coffin; the statue of the Victoire de Samothrace; and pieces of Greek ceramic objects; as well as a Buste d’Auguste and masterpieces of Roman mosaics served as models for this limited series of 20 (five of each variation).
Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations – Grand Sphinx de Tanis
The monumental Grand sphinx de Tanis watch features the carved gold applique representing the head of the sphinx. The main dial is made of enamel whose deep color, a mixture of blue and black enamels, is obtained after six firings in the kiln. The decorative dial elements are inspired by the necklace depicted on the cartonnage coffin of Nakht-khonsou-irou. The sapphire crystal of the timepiece is engraved by metallization with hieroglyphic inscriptions from a cartouche of the sphynx of Tanis.
Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations – Lion de Darius
The frieze of lions is one of the few decorative elements of the Palace of Darius in Susa that was found on-site. As the lions are part of a frieze, the watch face in the background had to represent this decoration of glazed bricks affixed to a wall. To achieve this, the artisans used stone marquetry; and to accentuate the realistic look, they chose stone fragments with veins, which are by definition more fragile than those without. The frieze surrounding the dial was inspired by the decoration of another well-known work from the Palace of Darius: the Frieze of Archers. This ornamentation, consisting of a juxtaposition of triangles, is made of engraved metal and champlevé enamel with “ageing” inclusions.
Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations – Victoire de Samothrace
This Victoire de Samothrace, Niké in Greek, is a masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture. The center of the main dial is enamelled in brown. The periphery features grisaille enamelling depicting the decorative friezes taken from two Greek vases. These ceramic objects bearing red-painted geometrical figures feature various ornaments with foliage or geometric motifs, which are picked up on the dial. The latter is also surrounded by a gold frieze garnished using the line engraving technique, inspired by that of the Vase of Pergamon, a first century BC masterpiece of marble sculpted in bas-relief. The ancient Greek script engraved by metallization on the sapphire crystal bearing the applied Victory is taken from a second AD votive stele discovered in Samothrace.
Métiers d’Art Tribute to Great Civilizations – Buste d’Auguste
The center of the dial of the watch that pays tribute to a Buste d’Auguste and masterpieces of Roman mosaics, is enamelled in blue-green, while its periphery is decorated with stone micro-mosaic. The Latin script engraved on the sapphire crystal bearing the bust of Augustus are drawn from a dedication addressed to the Genius (divine protector) of the city of Rusicada (Skikda in Algeria).
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