SIHH 2014: The Ballon Bleu de Cartier Floral-Marquetry Parrot , Taming the Ephemeral
SIHH 2014: The Ballon Bleu de Cartier Floral-Marquetry Parrot , Taming the Ephemeral
Shaking up tradition with creativity and innovation while reviving rare and forgotten crafts…
Such is the challenge that Cartier has been passionately pursuing for several years, during which time it has built up a formidable collection of exceptional watches.
In celebration of the ephemeral beauty of flowers and in order to preserve it for eternity, this year Cartier has taken up a new craft in watchmaking: floral marquetry, which adorns and enlivens the dial of the Ballon Bleu de Cartier 42 mm watch.
A watch at the crossroads of two kinds of craftsmanship: the one, never before seen in watchmaking, immortalises flowers and their vulnerable beauty; the other, that of the jeweller, enhances the dial’s precious nature.
When the two combine, a kind of alchemy occurs, resulting in an explosion of colour: there is the blue and the orangey-yellow of the plumage, the deep black of the beak, the emerald green of the eye and the sparkling white diamonds in the background of the dial and on the crown. Never has a Ballon Bleu de Cartier watch contained such a palette of colours!
Making the ephemeral eternal takes time. A multitude of minute operations follow one after the other: the flower petals are gathered and coloured, each petal is then stuck onto a thin piece of wood and cut into the desired shape using a marquetry saw.
Thus transformed, they become feathers and plumage, a precious, noble material that is vibrant, sensual and fragile, with a volume and texture that contrast with the shine of the onyx beak and emerald eye.
The grey and black feathers surrounding the eye are created one by one with miniature painting. Several hours of marquetry and stone-setting work within the Manufacture are required for the dial of this creation to come into being.