S otheby’s Watches is excited to present a sale format like no other before in Geneva. This season we are offering two sessions of fantastic watches, one online and one live, in a single day of luxury sales that spans jewellery, cars and accessories. Highlighting the sales are highly complicated offerings from Audemars Piguet and Hublot, sports Rolex from vintage Daytona to Sea-Dwellers and Submariners, and a selection of world-famous independent brands such as Greuebel Forsey and F.P. Journe.
Illustrated: F.P. Journe, Octa Automatique Reserve De Marche platinum wristwatch with digital date display and 5-day power reserve indication circa 2007.
Building his first tourbillon at the age of 25, Francois-Paul Journe began his watchmaking career in 1985 making unique watches for private clients from a small Parisian workshop. Dedicated to providing the highest quality and craftsmanship Mr Journe sees a depth, an emotional element to watchmaking.
"The art of watchmaking is more than a matter of making fine watches – it means giving a part of oneself… as a legacy bearing witness to one’s time"
He was to spend 15 years developing his brand until, in the year 2000, he opened his first boutique in the heart of Geneva’s contemporary art scene. There, with a team of 50, the now ‘F.P. Journe – Invenit et Fecit’ were producing three to four watches per day.
With boutiques worldwide F.P Journe is a multi-award winning watchmakers deservedly renowned for that standard of quality and craftsmanship that Mr Journe insisted upon over 30 years ago.
Perhaps one of the most interesting elements of horology is that it represents an area of continual development, striving constantly to improve and in so doing discovering things along the way. The innovation that has manifested from this of course takes many shapes but one of which are complications.
Now complications take many forms too, some improve accuracy, some improve functionality and other convey startling levels of information. They engage the wearer, they are playful and interesting to observe, and beyond this they demonstrate an astounding technical prowess. This sale is delighted to showcase a host of different complications from tourbillon to chronographs to automaton, perpetual calendars and power reserve indications.
Hublot, founded in 1980, is one of the younger large manufactures though that hasn’t stopped them from making waves in the watch world. They are distinguished by their throwing themselves to the forefront of innovation, creating watches under the mantra ‘art of fusion’. They contradict the norm, mixing materials and form to reimagine the common thought on what constitutes a luxury watch.
This sale features two pieces that demonstrate this perfectly. The first, the MP-05 has been designed to mimic the engine bay of the Ferrari La Ferrari and, housed entirely in its black sapphire case, is made in an extremely limited edition of just 20 pieces. It is also the height of complexity being comprised of over 600 individual components, incorporating a power reserve of 50 hours, and a tourbillon – a world record breaking feat that it maintains to this day.
The second is the MP-02 Key of Time introduced in 2011. This watch also featuring a vertically mounted tourbillon allows the user to slow or increase the passage of time. The beauty of this complication however is that regardless of the speed set the movement will always remember the actual time and it can be instantly switched to at the wearers discretion.
