Watchmaking's métier d'arts: the timepieces that are mini masterpieces of craftsmanship

Watch brands refer to it simply as savoir faire: the traditional know-how that underscores the delicate artistic techniques, or métiers d’art, deployed in Switzerland’s most beautiful decorative watches. 

An intrinsic part of fine watchmaking from its earliest days, the crafts used to embellish and beautify the grandest historic timepieces --– miniature enamel painting, hand engraving, elaborately engine-turned dials, the art of skeletonisation and countless other arcane techniques – almost faded away in the age of the wristwatch, until the haute horlogerie revival began generating a revival too of haute de gamme artistry.

Nevertheless, such craftsmanship remains exceptionally rare – these are artforms, after all, in which a tiny watch dial can take several days or even weeks of painstaking handwork to complete.

But the dexterity of the artistry and the ambition of creative vision only continues to grow, as does the list of techniques involved. Here is a quartet of the most dazzingly realised artistic watches to appear this year.

Lasting impressions at Chaumet

In addition to its well-known jewellery watches, Chaumet has quietly been developing highly-crafted métiers d’art dials over the past few years.

With its écritures range, it takes a new and intriguing approach, inspired by legendary Impressionist painters. There are six models in the range, and each design is an abstract – an interpretation of a tiny detail in a painting, as if zoomed in to show the distinctive character of the artist’s brushstrokes.

They are bold or delicate, and as colourful as you would expect – the exception being an example in pure engraved gold and miniature painting, based on Gustave Caillebotte’s La Plaine de Gennevilliers, its texture evoking wavelike fields of yellow flowers.

“The paintings used as inspiration have different facets that bring to life different aspects of Chaumet’s artistry,” explains Chaumet CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt. “The idea was to magnify one component, which could be reinterpreted through the different techniques.”

In another model, bold cerise and turquoise strokes from one bloom of Monet’s Nymphéas en fleur water lilies are engraved and miniature-painted in two layers reflecting the lily floating on water. Van Gogh’s Poppy Field are rendered as a glowing abstract of vermilion and moss green, in sculpted yellow gold and miniature knife painting.

The close-up of the hazy florals from Renoir’s Femme à l’ombrelle dans un jardin involves a tiny canvas, miniature oil painting and gold leaf, while the blooms from Odilon Redon’s Arbre en Floraison are in fine grand feu enamel on pink gold.

Finally, the shady leaves of Manet’s La Partie de Croquet are a tour de force of marquetry in black opal, jade and mother-of-pearl, on an oxidised white gold base. Only five versions of each model exist, and each design comes with a specifically toned satin or alligator strap. écritures? range, from ￡83,900 ; Chaumet 

Radical geometry from Piaget

Piaget began a major watch-design trend when it started to exploit the beauty of hardstones for watch dials in the early 1960s. Coral, jade, lapis lazuli, tiger’s eye, malachite and the like helped to define the era: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wore a green jade Piaget with diamonds, while Andy Warhol perferred a precious onyx dial.

Now the brand is combining its stone dial heritage with even rarer craft in the Stone Marquetry Altiplano Tourbillon. A flying tourbillon movement only 4.6mm thick shares, with the off-centre timekeeping dial, an expanse of beautifully striped green malachite on the open, 41mm case, cut extraordinarily thinly in radiating curves by French ma?tre d’art Hervé Obligi, the top exponent of the craft.

Obligi, who began his career by  working with wood, took up stone marquetry instead because, as he admits, “I love a material that resists me. I never get bored with stones – each one has new and different colours and markings.”

Each tiny sliver is selected to create a harmonious, lightly geometric whole, meaning each dial is unique and takes a month to complete.Piaget’s Stone Marquetry Altiplano Tourbillon?, ￡95,500; Piaget 

Jaquet Droz's animal magic

Jaquet Droz has been carving out a noteworthy metiers d’art niche in recent years, with designs that break new ground.

The limited-edition Petite Heure Minute Smalta Clara Tiger, 35mm across and diamond-bezelled, is a formidable example of transparent plique à jour enamel (“smalta clara” in Latin), where the colours are separated by tiny gold-wire divisions and there is no metal base, giving a stained-glass effect.

The small, off-centre dial allows space for the tiger’s ferocity and brilliance to shine through – blue and pink tones are set in white gold, orange and yellow shades in rose gold. Jaquet Droz Petite Heure Minute Smalta Clara Tiger, ￡43,050; Arije 

Vacheron Constantin’s flights of fancy

Vacheron Constantin has its own history with art dials, from the miniature reproduction of Chagall’s ceiling for the Opéra Garnier in Paris – a watch that took master enameler Anita Porchet six months to complete, and even featured tiny engraved gold copies of the gilded bosses supporting the ceiling – to grisaille enamel renderings of Degas’ dancers.

Vacheron’s latest masterpieces are more esoteric in inspiration but even more spectacular in craft virtuosity. The Les Aérostiers editions celebrate five pioneering 1780s balloon flights in France from the Montgolfiers onwards, as popularly illustrated at the time by engravers and etchers.

A different craft commands each layer of the dial. On top, each balloon design is faithfully recreated in domed, engraved gold of varying colours, with details down to ropes and passengers picked out in contrast.

Beneath, toning skies and clouds are created in translucent plique à jour enamel – rotating discs that display hours, minutes, date and day indications can be seen beneath the enamel. Revealed through the case-back, the gold rotor is also domed and hand-decorated. There are five designs in the collection, limited to a mere five watches each. Les Aérostiers Bordeaux 1784?, ￡134,000; Vacheron Constantin

Sign up for the Telegraph Luxury newsletter  for your weekly dose of exquisite taste and expert opinion.