What goes into making the world's most elaborate and stunning watch dials?

A look at some of the most unforgiving, but high reward, artisan techniques in horology

An 18-carat white gold minute repeater tourbillon depicting the legendary ghost ship Flying Dutchman, using both miniature and grisaille enameling techniques. Photo: Vacheron Constantin

The art of horology is a storied craft. Among the intricate techniques practised within watchmaking, the use of enamel is one of the oldest and most precious, with several of the delicate techniques emerging in the 17th and 18th centuries to decorate clocks and pocket watches.

Many of the skills developed more than 400 years ago are still used by luxury watch brands today. Here, we look at the revered techniques used in the rarefied world of haute horology.

Grand feu firing

Often combined with guilloche (mechanical or hand engraving) patterns, grand feu is the most widely used enamelling process. Minerals that make the coloured enamel are mixed with water and applied in successive layers to silver dial plates, which are fired between each layer at 800°C to form a smooth semi-translucent surface. An example of this process is the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso One Precious Colours with the geometric-patterned backs.

The most popular techniques used by watchmakers are Cloisonne, Champleve, Paillonne and miniature painting, transforming timepieces into miniature artworks.

Grand feu cloisonne enamelling, which dates back at least to the Byzantine Empire, creates the contours of a motif with fine gold wire and then fills the resulting “cloisons” or cells with translucent, opaque or opalescent enamels. Vacheron Constantin uses the technique for the pictorial dials in its Metiers d’Art Tribute collection that displays ancient Chinese symbols.

At Patek Philippe, a Minute Repeater World Time features a cloisonne steamboat on Lake Geneva. Several Hermes equine dials have been created with a similar technique, as have the whimsical creatures in the Lady Arpels timepieces by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Champleve etching and paillonne embellishment

Champleve is equally popular with watchmakers; a process in which troughs or cells are carved or etched into a metal surface (dial or watchcase) and these are filled with vitreous enamel and fired to adhere.

The technique is often used to colour the dainty flowers and figures decorating the dials of a Dior Grand Soir Automate, Jaquet Droz automatons, and Van Cleef & Arpels’s Lady Arpels wristwatches, with the diamonds sometimes dropped into the still-soft enamel before it’s fully fired.

Paillonne, meanwhile, consists of embedding small gold or silver-leaf paillons (sparkles) in translucent enamel to illuminate the decoration and is used, for example, to create a starry night dial.

All these techniques are sometimes used in combination and require great skill, time and patience, with the risk that a succession of firings at high temperatures could easily cause the process to falter. There are few artisans who can master all these skills and most specialise in one or two.

Watch and jewellery maisons are committed to preserving these traditions, with Van Cleef & Arpels, for instance, bringing together craftsmen from metiers d’art disciplines such as enamel, marquetry, engraving and miniature painting into one of its Geneva workshops.

Miniature painting by hand

A completely different enamelling technique is miniature painting, where the coloured enamel is mixed with oil rather than water, making it possible to draw with a fine paintbrush a picturesque scene on a dial, which is then covered with clear enamel.

Vacheron Constantin, Hermes, Jaquet Droz and Ulysse Nardin are among the watchmakers who employ artists specialising in this extraordinary, delicate hand work and the subjects vary widely from seascapes to horses and dragons. Each one is unique.

Jaeger-LeCoultre recently released the Reverso Tribute enamel series that paid homage to Venice with three case-backs featuring different miniature reproductions of Claude Monet’s Venice Series, showcasing the artistic skills of the watchmaker’s Metiers Rares atelier. Each masterwork took the enameller 70 hours to reproduce.

One of the less traditional examples is from Swiss watchmaker Jaquet Droz, known for its automatons, who has recreated the Rolling Stones Some Girls album cover, which displays miniature paintings along with engraved gold miniatures of the band’s instruments that rotate the dial.

Patek Philippe shows several examples of delicate hand painting and other enamel techniques in their Rare Handcrafts exhibition, which opened in Geneva in April and is on a world tour. The brand is renowned for the rarity and exquisite artisanship of its wristwatches, dome clocks and pocket watches, providing a perfect canvas for its craftsmen.

Enamelling is a decorative technique that holds a significant place in Patek Philippe’s history, with imagery ranging from the constellations of the zodiac in Cloisonne on Calatrava wristwatches, to miniature hand-engraved and enamel Canaletto and Monet paintings on pocket watches. Such is the artistry of haute horology.