A couple of months back, watchmaker Jaquet Droz revealed a one-of-a-kind Tropical Bird Repeater watch with seven animations and 216 baguette-cut diamonds which was absolutely astounding. However, in the month of May, the manufacture has lifted the veil of another extraordinary creation which took three years in development and can be best described as stunning visual poetry in motion. The new Jaquet Droz Magic Lotus Automaton is a wristwatch with an ultra-sophisticated dial that offers a 4-minute-long circular animation depicting an Eden-like garden with budding lotus flowers and frolicking koi fish. Each of the four flowers represent the four different seasons. A hand-carved mother-of-pearl button at 3 o’clock symbolizes an unopened lotus bud, which stands for spring. To its left is a blooming lotus that symbolizes summer. The flower that’s fallen into the water, as one would expect, evokes fall, while a diamond-set seed pod at 6 o’clock marks winter, completing the whole circle of life.
The dial of the new Jaquet Droz timepiece is made of three parts: the off-centered subdial made of onyx and featuring gold hour and minute hands; a crescent-shaped fixed disk sit around it which displays the life cycle of lotus flower; the third element is a fully rotating peripheral disk that features two animations. The first animation involves a handcrafted gold koi fish that flaps its tail and also moves up and down. The second one involves a lotus flower; each time when the lotus passes beneath the dial or leaves, it acquires a new stone – blue sapphire, yellow sapphire and ruby. “The same stone never appears in the same place from one rotation to the next,” the official press release reads. “The color of the lotus heart changes, invisibly, four times for every rotation around the river, and the same stone is never seen twice in a row.” The hand-wound mechanical automaton movement that makes this whole exceptionally-sophisticated mechanical artistry work is made of more than 500 components, making it come of the most complicated watches by Jaquet Droz. The watch is available in a 43 mm red gold or 43 mm white gold case, limited to 28 pieces each and is priced at $210,000 apiece.
[Via:RobbReport]
