Jaquet Droz Dragon Automaton Sapphire - Lapis Lazuli

Two years ago, Jaquet Droz unveiled one of the most complex automatons ever produced for a wristwatch: the Dragon Automaton, featuring sixteen moving parts and nine animations. Now, Jaquet Droz has gone further still in terms of sophistication and difficulty by adding a sapphire crystal case and a lapis lazuli dial – a stunning feat for what is well and truly a unique piece.

When the ‘John Howe’ Dragon Automaton was unveiled, some saw it as the last word on the subject: the piece seemed to mark the final destination of a long creative journey with the famed artistic designer for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Now it’s clear that it was in fact a starting-point. Over the next two years, in the seclusion of its Ateliers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Jaquet Droz strove to draw Art and Watchmaking still closer together, revisiting the canons of both to produce a new blend of creative disruption.

The symbol of the Dragon goes back thousands of years, spanning every era, continent, and culture; Jaquet Droz has taken it up here, reproducing the sacred beast in grey gold. Each part of the dragon’s body has been hand-sculpted and then polished and individually engraved to detail scales, claws, and more.