The secret art of the watchmaker
Joanne Glasbey visits Frieze to see a very different kind of artist — Breguet’s in-house guillocheur — at work
Among the engaging, occasionally challenging contemporary artworks on display in the creative safari of this year’s Frieze London there’s a homage to the art of time-keeping. The high-end watchmaker Breguet, a partner of the influential art fair, has teamed with the independent curator Somi Sim to work on the installation for Breguet’s space at the event, framing horology as a landscape for exploration. Sim, who is based between Seoul and Paris, was inspired by the skill of Breguet craftsmen and the complex engineering involved in capturing time. Her curation features work by international artists reflecting on the nature of time and the historic Swiss house’s many technical innovations over the centuries.
One of these firsts, the craft of guilloché on dials and the cases of pocket watches, was introduced to watchmaking by Abraham-Louis Breguet, the Swiss house’s founder, in the 18th century. In the world of luxury the devil’s in the detail, and guilloché is one of those quiet yet beautiful signifiers, an engraving that can be appreciated for its lines and designs and that plays with light and illumination.
Taking centre stage in Breguet’s Frieze space is a traditional machine that resembles a grand version of your great-granny’s old manual Singer sewing machine. But this century-old apparatus does more than stitching. In the hands of an experienced artisan it can create astonishing artwork in metal by precision engraving. This is guilloché decoration, also known as engine turning, a type of mechanical craftsmanship that creates grids of straight, curved or broken lines. These become linear patterns or circular shapes. Parallel or intersecting, the grooves form a repetitive and symmetrical geometrical design.
The technique of guillochage has been around since the late middle ages and can be seen decorating buildings — and on banknotes. Breguet is one of a handful of top-tier horology houses using the craft and preserving the historic artisanal art. Guilloché decorates almost all of Breguet’s watches — on the dials, and the cases, rotors, plates and calibre bars. “Guilloché is a key element of Breguet style,” says Emmanuel Breguet, a seventh-generation descendant of Abraham-Louis and the vice-president, head of patrimony. “It’s elegant and gives an anti-reflective aspect. The use of several different types of guilloché on a single dial provides increased legibility for the various indicators [the sub-dials showing seconds and date apertures].”
The patterning requires a huge amount of skill, mastery of the tools, focus, and an unwaveringly steady hand. The artisan, or guillocheur, cranks the tools on a rose engine or a straight-cut machine to rotate and orientate the dial, while applying different degrees of pressure to advance the dial against a cutter to determine the depth and consistency of the engraving. The left hand drives the tools using a handle while the right hand guides the chisel, which is fixed to a carriage. The slightest shake and it’s all over for that dial. Of course, today there are machines capable of automatically stamping and cutting guilloché patterns on a dial, taking minutes rather than days of a manual artisan’s time, but connoisseurs will always prefer the smallest manifestation of human input, the tiny imperfections that inevitably occur when worked by hand.
Advertisement
Breguet’s guillocheurs work in a dedicated workshop in the Swiss Vallée de Joux. They use traditional and modern versions of engine-turning lathes that have been specially developed and manufactured in-house, given a state-of-the-art update with ergonomics, lighting, optics and precision. The workshop has become one of the most important in the industry, its artisans able to craft complex patterns. Breguet has also established a research and creation unit for the technique, involving the development of new shapes and patterns, enabling a wide range of engraved designs within its collections. These include elaborate patterns such as clous de Paris, hobnailing, basket weave, sunburst — involving fine lines radiating from a centre — barleycorn and Côte de Genève. The Classique Chronométrie watch displays an impressive number of these designs, while the “simpler” guilloché work on the Classique 5157 adds a new dimension to the spare, handsome dial, and the Marine collection makes good use of the “Marea” dial guilloché design, representing waves in the sea.
Back at Frieze, in the middle of a crowded pavilion that’s a visual blowout of contemporary creativity, Breguet’s guillocheur keeps a remarkably steady grip while demonstrating use of the antique rose engine. The visitors stopping to observe his work collectively hold their breath as the blade gouges slowly but precisely along the metal dial, the lines he engraves magnified on a large screen, generating a living moment of artistic endeavour.
breguet.com
