Cartier: the beautiful story of the mysterious clocks
While Cartier has a sumptuous collection of mysterious watches, back on the famous mysterious peace street jeweller clocks, which constitute a chapter full of history and in the universe of the House. Told them "Mysterious", because their needles in Platinum and diamonds seem to float in the transparent body of the pendulum, unconnected to the movement. When time passing becomes magical and mysterious...
These "miracles of watchmaking", as are called the right tone in 1925 Gazette, are the fruit of the collaboration of Louis Cartier and an exception clockmaker Maurice Couet (1885-1963). There is no 25 years when he was noticed by Cartier - it already displays a solid experience.
From 1911, he became the exclusive supplier of Cartier Replica Watches uk. The first mysterious pendulum, dubbed model A, out of the workshops in 1912. Maurice Couet is inspired by the clocks of the famous illusionist and inventor of modern magic Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin (1805-1871). The principle, he resumed and developed, is based on a genius idea: the needles are not directly related to the movement but they are fixed to two glass discs equipped with a serrated metal border.
Operated by the movement, usually housed in the base of the clocks, it is they who will then lead the needles, one rotating at the speed of the minutes, the other at the speed of the hours. To make the illusion perfect, the edge of the discs is hidden by the circle of hours. Model A has several variants relating to the nature of the base (which perhaps onyx, agate, nephrite or gold), the decoration of the dial and coaching (white enamel and mother-of-Pearl are the most frequently used) or even in the form of needles.
1920 saw the birth of the model told central axis. Unlike the model A, the discs are not operated by two axes from each side of the base but by a single axis. This innovation gives Cartier one more freedom in his aesthetic research. In 1923, in an ultimate technical evolution, the movement comes to stay atop the famous mysterious clocks portico.
Extremely rare, some require more a year's work and the intervention of numerous workshops, they have attracted the great of this world: John P erpont Morgan Jr, the Queen of Spain, Queen Mary, wife of George V, the Maharajah of Patiala to name but a few, had one or more of these precious objects.
Drawing creation for a pendulum mysterious type model A made of rock crystal, mother-of-Pearl, yellow gold, onyx and diamonds, 1929 photo Archives Cartier with Credit 17 clocks of inestimable value, the Cartier Collection brings today a single set in the world, including especially the first of the six pendulums portico and two model A similar to the first creation of 1912.
Here are two mysterious clocks (in photo below), seemingly identical one to another, and yet confined by the play of reflections in which the jeweler has placed them. Same secret the envelope: the mystery of their origin, the Enigma of their operation.
The first is white quartz, gemstone to the Milky sweetness; mother of Pearl inlay unfolds around the dial in a radiation punctuated by bursts of diamonds Replica Rolex watches. For the second, the jeweller watchmaker has chosen a rare stone, Rainbow Obsidian, the so-called "Heavenly stone". Opaline clarity is travelled by materials and lively depths.
An anomaly, a nice default hijacked by Cartier, making it a valuable atower. Floating, suspended, weightless, needles are two comets of diamonds with the revolution accompanied the flight of the hours, as suspended. It is all just so their race touches the center of this absolute transparency record where they are attached. Around the dial, the inlaid mother-of-Pearl and Obsidian composed with diamond a set of radiation whose the rays go from grey to white. On the back, the passage of the stars is woven bursts of gold. On the one and the other, a diamond Festoon frames the other patches the base as a lace of jewellery.
It took between 800 and 1000 hours of work to achieve these two unique models, these two created pieces next to one another and which condense the watchmaking subtleties on the absolute of rock crystal: an only fragile as pure stone.
Beautiful, because only free from the weight of the world, beautiful that spare because of contingencies of the time and its passage. As enigmatic messengers, these mysterious clocks evoke by their harmonious perfection of the watchmaking universe according to Cartier: a miracle and magic perfection... A harmony which the jeweller jealously guard the secret.