Cartier Tank Solo Steel Large Watch W5200003

IW Magazine - 16 December 2011 

The absence of a dial was common in the initial days of mechanical horology, when early clocks were striking timekeepers without faces or hands. Fortunately, clocks featuring simple engraved metal disks and a single hand soon materialized, followed by more sophisticated dials of silvered base metal or solid silver and gold.
But by the mid-17th century artisans transformed pendant and pocket watches into beautiful objets d'art, creating what is called "the Age of Decoration" among watchmaking historians. By the mid-18th century, fired enamel dials were commonplace and painted enamel and jeweled dials were also widespread. But it was the renowned Abraham-Louis Breguet who breathed life back into the metal dial, which showcased his amazing talent for the art of guilloche.

Today, creativity in dial work seems boundless, as increasingly complex and elaborate dials come out of craftsmen's ateliers or specialist firms, bringing life to the story each timepiece tells and renewing what for years were vanishing, ancient techniques. Some might argue that today dial-making is again reaching the artistic heights once seen a century ago, re-enlivening a true horological art form.
Coupled with a 21st-century free-thinking approach and a desire for individuality and authenticity of genuine craftwork, where the number of hours spent in the making count, variety is the name of the game. Craft is piled upon craft—guilloche, enamelling, marquetry, engraving, mother-of-pearl and gem-setting—to create stunning and original dials and cases.
Yet often the artisans that perform this meticulous, painstaking work go largely unrecognized as they craft treasures for well-heeled customers (whose names are fiercely guarded). And while the techniques they employ have changed little over the centuries, the designs they produce are often resolutely contemporary. And while a few of these traditional dial decorative crafts are aided by modern manufacturing technologies, most seem to require the same traditional craftsmanship, artistry—and time—that has for centuries attracted collectors.
Let's take a look at three of the major traditional dial-making arts: guilloche, engraving and marquetry.
Guilloche
A seemingly ordinary piece of metal can be transformed into an extraordinary piece of art when a technique such as guilloche is applied to a dial. Guilloche, or engine turning, is an engraving technique where an artisan with many years of experience uses a special machine known as a rose engine to mechanically etch precise, intricate and repeating decorative patterns onto a surface.

Each line is just a few tenths of a millimeter wide and three-to-four-hundredths deep. A practice that started in the late 16th century, guilloche was first used on softer materials such as wood but, by the end of the 18th century, advancements in manufacturing methods permitted guilloche to be applied onto metal surfaces.
A highly-demanding craft, horological guilloche is done on a miniature level where the work piece is manually directed against the cutting edge and careful pressure is applied for a consistent cutting depth, commonly performed with the help of a stereoscopic microscope. A steady hand, patience and total concentration are essential to ensure regularity of the pattern and correct engraving depth, as just a momentary lapse in attention may produce visible flaws, causing the work to be rejected.
Though computer-guided cutters or mass-production stampings may be used, traditional guilloche creates a one-of-a-kind faceted surface that cannot be exactly reproduced.
One much-heralded example is the Breguet Classique 5177 in red gold, which shows off hand-engraved guilloche in a cross-weave motif on its silvered gold dial. Performed using a rose engine from the late 1800s, the dial features hand-guided "barleycorn" guilloche in a complex pattern of eighty waves spiralling from the dial's centre to its edge.
Engraving
As the most ancient dial-maker's art, engraving was used in the mid-17th century to produce elegant metal dials. Artists carved an image of hollowed designs with the help of tools similar to those used today. Chasing, on the other hand, requires an inverse procedure. A picture is produced by eradicating material from around the principal subject for a high-relief result of exquisite depth.
Platinum requires great care to engrave, as it is a more delicate and unpredictable material than steel or gold, according to master engraver Dominique Vuez, who heads the group of engravers working at Jaeger-LeCoultre. He says he expresses his emotions when engraving, using hand tools like dry-points, burins, gravers, chisels, files and hammers.
For instance, he illustrates and personalises the second face of the Reverso's swivel cases with coats-of-arms, initials and drawings made according to customers' wishes.

The engraving process may take anything from two hours to two weeks, depending on the complexity of the project, Vuez says.
"The most challenging can be to convey emotions through the piece. There is nothing more rewarding than knowing that the person wearing the watch and looking at our work every day is happy with it."
And more difficult still is trying to engrave a portrait based on a photograph of a person, he says. "We are working on contrasts and have to carefully reproduce all the details for it to be identical and recognizable… without having seen the person!"
Marquetry
Marquetry, inlaid work made from miniature pieces of colored wood, shell, ivory, stone or other materials to compose a thin decorative covering, spreads over the entire dial and produces mosaic-like paintings. Originating as a woodworking technique from Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries, before moving on to Holland and France, marquetry was practiced chiefly for the decoration of furniture and objets d'art of the period. Used in stone, creating representational art pieces in stone marquetry was known as "pietre dure," which captivated the great Renaissance artists.

Crafting a classic wood marquetry dial encompasses the use of a great selection of wood veneers, which are cut and then fitted together like a puzzle with mind-numbing precision, especially when you consider the miniature scale on which the art is carried out.
"Where a painter has his palette of colours, we have a cellar full of different wood facings where we can choose from different species," explains Cartier veneer maker Jerôme Boutteçon. "Then we juggle with the differently-grained pieces of wood to interpret the drawing and place the piece in exactly the right place to get the contrast, color and textures. The essence of marquetry is being able to exercise very precise movements."