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Timeless dedication
Without using colours or adding materials, the enameller creates a relief which enhances each detail, from the expressions to the pleats in the costumes and the transparency of tulle and muslin
Above, the workshop of the master enameller. Below, one of the three unique pieces from the new Métiers d’Art collection, Hommage à l’Art de la Danse. Opposite page, the heart of these watches: a mechanical automatic winding 2460 SC mechanism, designed and made by Vacheron Constantin.
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The Grand Feu enamel is in fact typical of the city of Calvin, where the greatest artisans and experts in this profession live, and place their talents at the disposal of Vacheron Constantin to create masterpieces with dazzling colours. The grisaille Grand Feu is an even rarer specialisation: without using any colour, and without adding any material, the artisan who masters this métier d’art creates a relief that enhances every detail of the ballerinas, down to their expressions, the smallest folds of their costumes and the transparency of the tulle and muslin. The brightness and vividness of the dials, made entirely inside the Manufacture, are the result of a specific aesthetic choice: the craftsman does not apply the grisaille enamel to a black surface, but to a translucent brown enamel. The reliefs, designs and decorations are made with scrupulous attention to detail, using needles, ultra-fine brushes and even cactus spines: with these instruments, the Limoges white enamel, a very fine powder mixed with oils according to an archaic formula, is applied and worked. Sensitivity and intuition, manual skill and dexterity define the patient work of the master craftsman. The firing of each layer must be timed to the second, according to the type and amount of material applied. The firing time is but one of the many secrets guarded by the talented craftsmen of Vacheron Constantin, who can depict breathtakingly perfect
expressions, details and features with just a range of grey shades. Perfection does not lie solely in the execution but also in the inspiration: the master enameller interpreted three famous works by Degas after an extensive research and after having absorbed their poetry and lightness: Ballet Room at the Opera in Rue le Peletier, oil on canvas dated 1874 and displayed at the Musée d’Orsay; Ballet Rehearsal, oil on canvas painting of 1873, exhibited at the Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, USA); and Two Dancers on Stage, oil on canvas of 1874, exhibited at London’s Courtauld Gallery. In these works, the artist portrayed the energy, the expectation and the passion marking three key moments in the life of a ballerina: learning, practice and performance. Moments that occur also in the lives of every master watchmaker: the strict discipline that is necessary to learn the profession, the first complications constructed with meticulous perseverance, and the creation of the masterpiece that will adorn the wrist of someone who will take great pleasure in the movement of the hands, in the same way that a spectator is captivated by the gestures of a ballerina. Because both moments have to do with poetry. In the case of ballet, the moment is fugacious as it is unforgettable. In the case of the watch, the moment is eternal as time itself. Yet both are bound to the beauty that is born of the craft and becomes an art.
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