610. Nature at hand.

The Jaquet Droz Manufacture is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Jaquet-Droz. 

The birds sing when the push-button is pressed at nine o'clock, the eggs open and the chicks seem to chirp in this 47 mm red gold watch, where the hours and minutes are read on a black onyx dial set at twelve o'clock. Three centuries later, the magic of the beautiful mechanics of time is still present.

Arceau d'Hermès watch named 'Les Trois Grâces'.

The genius of the Hermès craftsmen was to render this gracefulness through a wood marquetry whose texture of each fragment evokes the very graphic coat of the giraffe: no less than 195 pieces of wood (walnut, maple, tulip tree) are needed to paint the portrait of this giraffe. The savannah setting is evoked by a miniature painting on an aventurine background: it takes several weeks of work to complete a single dial - and this series will have twenty-four of them, housed in a 38 mm white gold case set with 82 diamonds (Swiss mechanical movement signed Hermès).