Boucheron’s Bestiary Tourbillon

Combining visual and material perfection by uniting the very best in watch-making with jewelry, all under the watchful eye of the animal kingdom, what an unusual and exciting way of transforming time into a whimsical accomplice. This stunning collection, which comes in two different versions and in a very limited series of 8 pieces in order to emphasize its symbolic value, each feature one the three animals most closely associated with Boucheron grasping hold of a watch, each handmade in white gold, claiming it their own. These fascinating and precious creatures, which seem to have escaped from a rainforest painted by Max Ernst or Rousseau, hold tightly onto a lightweight tourbillon frame, the slightly off-center position of which attracts the viewer’s attention.

These fine sculptures, all crimped by hand by the master jewelers of the Maison Boucheron, attached to the watch case serve to focus the attention on to the technical jewel they guard so jealously. Once this fascinating wildlife, born of the creativity of the firm’s craftsmen, that includes a chameleon and a frog, has been tamed by your gaze, a tourbillon is revealed, the mobile carriage of which has been fashioned such that it looks like a trellis on which precious foliage is growing, set with diamonds, materializing the circular passing of seconds in delightfully poetic fashion. Time itself appears contingent and is set off-center and opposite the opening in the watch face, so that the hypnotic frame looks as if it is levitating. The most astonishing aspect of this dreamlike construction is that nature, captured in a bejeweled instant, seems to have frozen in time before the butterfly formed by the hour and minute hands is swallowed up by the animal on guard.

The mechanical caliber is manually wound caliber, visible through the watch’s transparent bottom. In addition to the tourbillon at the center of which can be seen a balance, taking its inspiration from marine chronometers used during the age of discovery, the movement includes bridges designed such that the picture of the animal sculpted in the round on the watch bezel, is reproduced as a silhouette on the metal. And last of all, the ticking which can be heard from the heart of the watch gives a unique dimension to this wrist-worn shadow, which seems to breathe with life.

Movement
Flying tourbillon with swiss lever escapement, carriage set with diamonds, 17 jewels, 21’600 b/h (=3 Hz)
Mechanical movement with manual winding. Additional module to ex-center the hour and minutes hands. 13´´. Bridges shaped like animals and manually angled.
Animals:
18k white gold chameleon : 282 rubies, multicolored sapphires and tsavorites : 7.7 ct
18k white gold frog : 195 rubies, multicolored sapphires and tsavorites : 3.3 ct
Case
18k white gold, diameter 42mm, sapphire glass and case back, water resistant to 50m.
Dial
White mother-of-pearl dial manually engraved
Straps
Raspberry pink stingray, raspberry pink karung, 18k white gold pin buckle
Limited Edition: 8 pieces ■

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