Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier

Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier watch, rose gold, white gold, white and yellow diamonds, pink sapphires, white mother-of-pearl, miniature painting, self-winding mechanical movement equipped with a flower-opening module for the hours and lateral minutes display.

To pay tribute to the nature that has fascinated it ever since 1906, the Maison has drawn inspiration from the floral clock concept (Horologium Florae), developed by Carl Von Linné, in his 1751 book Philosophia Botanica. In it, the Swedish botanist evokes a hypothetical garden plan made up of a broad variety of plants, whose flowers open and close at specific moments of the day to show the time. Van Cleef & Arpels has taken up this principle to bring two brand-new creations into being: the Lady Arpels Heures Florales and Lady Arpels Heures Florales Cerisier watches.

Their three-dimensional dial poetically depicts the passing of time through the opening and closing of 12 corollas. Reading the time becomes a spectacle as the flowers open and close, renewing the landscape of the dial every 60 minutes. To bring the dial to life, up to 166 elements are set in motion, thanks to a module entirely developed by the craftsmen of Les Ateliers Horlogers Van Cleef & Arpels in Geneva. Each petal of this garden is articulated and connected to the watch mechanism, calling for intricate assembly. The technical challenge of combining so many elements is supplemented by that of ensuring a flower opening process with three different sequences. With each passing hour, the open flowers close to making way for a new combination. The next day, the sequence of the bouquets that succeed one another from hour to hour will be different. The eye is entertained by new surprises, as it seeks out the measure of time between buds and corollas. Telling the time is completed by a minute display, visible in a window on the side of the case.