Grande Seconde Quantième by Jaquet Droz

With its striking aesthetics and sleek, avant-garde design, the Grande Seconde has been celebrating the magic of time in its most infinitesimal fractions since the 18th century.

This providential model, a creation of the Manufacture Jaquet Droz, is unanimously recognized as one of the most astonishing timepieces in watchmaking history.

Available in several jewelry versions and reinterpreted in the SW version, the Grande Seconde has always been presented in a case of precious metal or ceramic. Today, this magnificent watch is ushering in yet another innovation: it has been made of steel, a material suggesting strength, nobility and simplicity.

True to its avant-garde spirit, Jaquet Droz has taken a whole new approach to the design of the Grande Seconde, using an exclusive process to obtain two new models featuring all-black dials.

Applied to watchmaking for the very first time, this process involves crafting all of the dial components from solid metal, then dipping them in a chemical bath to obtain a perfect black coating. This extremely painstaking operation brings out the beauty of the indicators, which can have a fine-brushed finish, creating a unique interplay of light and textures.

For its third model, Jaquet Droz has given the Grande Seconde Quantième a look of great purity with a silvery-white dial. The traditional expertise used to apply the ring to the dial is the hallmark of the Manufacture.

On each of the three versions, the date is indicated by a hand positioned discreetly at six o'clock. Its elegantly tapered shape complements the distinctive look of the Roman and Arabic numerals, as well as the equilibrium of the graphic design, which has not changed in three hundred years.

Perfectly proportioned, the Grande Seconde Quantième brings about an astonishing encounter between materials and light as the gleam of the metal and chromatic uniformity of the dial engage in stunningly subtle dialogue.

True connoisseurs of Haute Horlogerie will instantly recognize these historic circular shapes, reinterpreted here with only one objective in mind: to express the spirit of modernity.

Both models will be in stores from october 2011!