High jewellery brand Fabergé has created a fresh iteration of the Compliquée Peacock Watch.
Made in collaboration with master craftsman André Martinez, an expert in miniaturist artistic painting on watch dials, and workmaster Jean-Marc Wiederrecht of Agenhor, this piece builds on the Compliquée Peacock’s High Mechanical award-winning performance at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève in 2015.
Each watch dial is unique and has an abstract André Martinez design that was inspired by lovely peacock feathers. Each design is limited to 10 numbered pieces. These works of art are wristbands that can be worn as art.
The House of Fabergé, founded in 1842 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by Gustav Fabergé, is renowned for its elaborate jewel-encrusted Fabergé eggs for the Russian Tsars, and for a range of other work of high quality and intricate detail.
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Fabergé has always collaborated with the best artisans in all fields of specialisation to produce works that encapsulate the essence of the brand’s past, present and future. For the Fabergé x Craft Irish Whiskey Co. Altruist Limited Edition and the Fabergé Altruist Wilderness watches, Martinez previously designed distinctive hand-painted dials. Additionally, he painted each feather by hand on each version of the acclaimed Compliquée Peacock Watch line.
Martinez said of this series: “I choose to express myself and my creative universe on the dials of these very high-end watches. It requires one to be confident and determined, to master your drawing skills and to understand the world of Fabergé.
“I am therefore able to offer to the person who acquires one of these watches the awareness of giving them the best of myself.”
The new Compliquée Peacock Arte Hand-Etched White Gold Watches, which come in two different colourways and are only produced in 10 numbered pieces per style, are genuine collector’s items.
The dials are engraved using an “intaglio” printmaking method from the 16th century called “eau forte”, or etching, in which an image or design is carved onto a plate using acid. Normally this would be a metal plate, but Martinez skilfully used mother-of-pearl to create a distinctive appearance.
Martinez’s lacquers are used to create gradations of colour on the bottom of the etched part of the colourful dial before being covered in a transparent lacquer to create a flat and tight depiction. Each piece is unique due to the prominent feather motif being entirely hand-painted.
On the bottom of the etched portion of the colourful dial, Martinez’s lacquers are employed to generate colour gradations, which are then covered in a clear lacquer to create a flat and tight depiction.
Because the conspicuous feather motif is entirely hand-painted, each piece is unique.
The watch’s prestigious mechanism was created in collaboration with Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and the Agenhor team. Agenhor is a Geneva company that specialises in building intricate watch mechanisms.
The family-owned business has grown internationally over the years while still upholding the traditional values of fine watchmaking. The workshop combines modern technologies with an old-fashioned view of watchmaking.