THE RODENT AND THE POMEGRANATE
At the end of January, a new cycle in the Chinese calendar will begin, the year of the Rat, a curious, alert little rodent that the watchmaker from La Chaux-de-Fonds is honoring with four new references in the Les Ateliers d’Art collection.
The year 2020, starting on January 25 to be exact, is the year of the Rat, the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac. Since the dawn of time, this rodent has been admired in Asia for its mental alertness and imagination, its intuition, its curiosity and its ambition. In four new versions of the famous Petite Heure Minute with a simple display of the time basics in the upper section of the dial, Jaquet Droz poetically depicts the little animal along with another powerful image of Oriental culture, the pomegranate, symbolizing prosperity and abundance.
Powered by self-winding movements (calibers 2653.P and 2653.Si), the Petite Heure Minute Rat models comprise two pieces in red gold with different diameters (35 and 39 mm) revealing an Ivory Grand Feu enamel dial embellished with a miniature painting and the other two larger ones (41 mm) combining engraving and set gems.
On the “smaller” reference, the red gold case is rimmed with white diamonds lining the bezel and attachments and, on the dial, a couple of rodents sit on a bed of leaves and pomegranate seeds below a black hour marker track and two spear-shaped hands for the hours and minutes. The 39-mm watch also includes markers with Roman numerals.
For the “relief“ versions, the case comes in white gold with diamonds on the lugs and rehaut, or in red gold. A black onyx disc covers the dial with a cluster of fleshy pomegranates (at 2 o’clock), an open fruit whose seeds are represented by rubies positioned using the snow-setting technique (at 9 o’clock) and, of course, a rat in sculpted gold holding a large ruby in its claws. At 12 o’clock, a silver or gold ring surrounds the hour and minute display.
Price: 31’150 CHF (39mm red gold) – 38’150 CHF (35mm red gold setting) – 71’300 CHF (41mm red gold) – 91’900 CHF (41mm white gold setting) jaquet-droz.com
By Sharmila Bertin