Cartier has introduced more than 100 new watch references at SIHH 2015. One of the most interesting is the Rotonde de Cartier Reversed Tourbillon, a watch whose unconventional flying tourbillon is displayed on a minimalist, sunburst-guilloché dial with an off-center hours and minutes display.
The Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Reversed Tourbillon watch carries on the tradition of guilloché work that has been a hallmark of Cartier products since Pierre Cartier began using the technique in his workshops after his journey to Russia and discovery of Fabergé creations. On watch dials, the motif used most often is “radiating” guilloche, with engraved rays from a central point. The dial of this Rotonde de Cartier watch is made of non-rhodium-finished white gold; the effect of the sunray guilloché pattern on the material is to create an eye-pleasing pattern of shiny beams of light. The dial’s other attraction, of course, is the reversed flying tourbillon and its bridges, with the rotating Cartier “C” serving as a seconds indicator. Hours and minutes are indicated on two blued steel hands in the upper right area of the dial, while the tourbillon, the watch’s heart, beats below the hands in the large aperture with a seconds scale. A blue sapphire cabochon, another hallmark of Cartier watches, is set into the winding crown.
The movement in the Rotonde de Cartier Reversed Tourbillon is Cartier’s in-house Caliber 9458, visible through the watch’s clear sapphire caseback. The manual-wound tourbillon movement is made up of 167 components, including 19 jewels, and has a frequency of 21,600 vph and power reserve of approximately 52 hours. All of its pieces are hand-finished, boasting such high-horology details as chamfering on the bridges, drawn flanks, polished screw heads and a parallel cotes de Geneve motif on the mainplate that echoes the radiating lines on the dial. Like other Cartier movements of recent vintage, Caliber 9458 has been awarded the poinçon de Genève, or Geneva Hallmark, for meeting the 12 criteria of excellence in movement finishing. Cartier says that the price of the Rotonde de Cartier Flying Tourbillon, will be 110,000 euros.
Today at the SIHH in Geneva, I had the chance to try on the Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Reversed Tourbillon for myself and was suitably impressed. Below is a glimpse of how it looks on the wrist.
