Christiaan Van Der Klaauw

Christiaan van der Klaauw is a Dutch independent watchmaker, honorable member of the AHCI, who founded his eponymous company in 1974. He is internationally recognized as the master of astronomical watches.

During the first 22 years of his company, Christiaan van der Klaauw focused on astronomical clocks before he started with his first wristwatch in the mid 1990's, the CVDK (for Christiaan van der Klaauw) Satellite du Monde. In 1999, he presented the CVDK Planetarium, which was the smallest mechanical planetarium in the world.

In 2009, the brand welcomed Daniel and Maria Reintjes. Under their leadership and together with Christiaan van der Klaauw, they repositioned the brand now exclusively focusing on astronomical wristwatches. In the following years, they won many awards, including the Watch of the Year Award in 2011, the European Watch of the Year Award in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) in 2021. CVDK is also officially listed as a Haute Horlogerie brand by the Fondation Haute Horlogerie (FHH).

Thanks to its unique savoir-faire, CVDK also collaborated with other brands, such as Van Cleef & Arpels and created the Lady Arpels Planetarium, which won the GPHG in 2016 in the ladies complication category.

The present lot, the Venus, is in the pure tradition of astronomical wristwatches created by Christiaan van der Klaauw.

In addition to telling the time, the timepiece also indicate the date and the Zodiac signs. Furthermore, aventurined glass dial is adorned by Venus, represented by a small sphere in opal, and the Earth in amazonite and the moon, while the sun is in the center. Interestingly, the red date hand, the Earth and Venus turn anti-clockwise. The red hand and the Earth are connected, to always be at 180° from each other.

Rarely presented at auction, Christiaan van der Klaauw watches offer a different and unique vision of horology combining science and poetry.