THE RODENT AND THE POMEGRANATE

At the end of January, a new cycle in the Chinese calendar will begin, the year of the Rat, a curious, alert little rodent that the watchmaker from La Chaux-de-Fonds is honoring with four new references in the Les Ateliers d’Art collection.

The year 2020, starting on January 25 to be exact, is the year of the Rat, the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac. Since the dawn of time, this rodent has been admired in Asia for its mental alertness and imagination, its intuition, its curiosity and its ambition. In four new versions of the famous Petite Heure Minute with a simple display of the time basics in the upper section of the dial, Jaquet Droz poetically depicts the little animal along with another powerful image of Oriental culture, the pomegranate, symbolizing prosperity and abundance.

For the “relief“ versions, the case comes in white gold with diamonds on the lugs and rehaut, or in red gold. A black onyx disc covers the dial with a cluster of fleshy pomegranates (at 2 o’clock), an open fruit whose seeds are represented by rubies positioned using the snow-setting technique (at 9 o’clock) and, of course, a rat in sculpted gold holding a large ruby in its claws. At 12 o’clock, a silver or gold ring surrounds the hour and minute display.

Price: 31’150 CHF (39mm red gold) – 38’150 CHF (35mm red gold setting) – 71’300 CHF (41mm red gold) – 91’900 CHF (41mm white gold setting) jaquet-droz.com

By Sharmila Bertin