Rotonde de Cartier Day Night retrograde Moon Phases

CARTIER FINE WATCHMAKING BREAKS NEW FRONTIERS

Fine Watchmaking and High Jewellery: the confluence of Cartier’s two founding fields will be the highlight of the 2016 edition of the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie. A unique creative partnership has thus been initiated between High Jewellery, with all the flamboyance of its gemstones, the power of its style and the expertise of its craft, and Fine Watchmaking, with its attention to detail and its emblematic watches and complications.

Master watchmakers and master jewellers, facing the same constraints and driven by the same ambitions, merge their skills to create five extraordinary jewellery watches on the boundaries of both worlds. The panther tries its hand at the complication game, with two watches that transpose Cartier’s supreme expertise into a narrative register. Enamel granulation, the latest addition to the collection of Cartier artistic crafts, introduces a rich diversity of chromatic range to the Maison’s iconic feline. Five Fine Watchmaking signature watches illustrate the creative dynamism of the 2016 Salon, hoisting the twin banners of technical prowess and aesthetic progress to new heights. Finally, since experimenting with shape has always been at the heart of Cartier watchmaking, the Maison has decided to unveil the new Hypnose and Drive de Cartier watches at the Salon.

With a focus on thirteen distinctive creations and two new collections, traditional definitions have been shaken up in the celebration of a new multi-faceted expertise that combines High Jewellery and Fine Watchmaking. The mysterious has extended its magic beyond the limits of imagination, blurring previously finite boundaries in an exploration of new creative territories. The force of Cartier’s watchmaking expertise can be measured by the depth of the emotion it inspires.

High Jewellery and Fine Watchmaking in an extraordinary, unprecedented collaboration

For over 160 years, Fine Watchmaking and High Jewellery have written the history of Cartier side by side. Today, these two worlds come together.

With the audacity to break the rules of separating genres, this collaboration is driven by a vision of creative territory in which diverse skills complement one another to their mutual advantage. The movement has been ushered into existence by Cartier, whose unique and decisive view assures the value of such exchanges.

Thus, amid the secrecy of its workshops, Cartier creates rare and precious objects that contribute to the beauty of our world. Here, the dialogue established between complementary skills yields extraordinary results.

By working together, craftsmen surpass their own limitations to blaze a new path. Through their hands and under their skilled eyes, miracles take on shape and colour, volume and brilliance. The ultimate achievement is the creation of emotion, through pioneering curiosity and unlimited boldness – the authentic Cartier signatures.

ROTONDE DE CARTIER Day/Night retrograde Moon Phases

CALIBRE 9912 MC

The Rotonde de Cartier model lends its generously-proportioned dial to two of the most spectacular complications in Fine Watchmaking: the Day/Night indicator and the retrograde Moon Phases display.

From left to right and dawn to dusk, the Sun and Moon follow each other across the upper part of the dial. This ever-moving display is accompanied by the retrograde progression of a hand indicating the Moon Phases, from the first to the last crescent, across the lower part of the dial.

To showcase this double complication, Cartier has conceived a dial in deep blue lacquer illuminated by gold spangles, on which the Moon Phases are set with diamonds and sapphires.

This is a cherished Cartier complication, forming part of its watchmaking repertoire since 1912. During that period, Cartier created a number of what were known as “comet” or “planet” clocks, extremely refined models in which jewellery and watchmaking combined to produce elegant, precious time displays. Several different models were proposed, the fruit of an imagination impregnated with mathematical rules.

With the Rotonde de Cartier watch Day/Night retrograde Moon Phases, Cartier continues and renews its constant research into the presentation of time, maintaining a link between the Sky and Earth.