The Battle of Trafalgar
The fleet and the sea, on a single dial, in mixed techniques.
- Level
- Premium
- Diameter
- 42 mm
- Calibre
- Swiss automatic
- Dial
- Mixed techniques
- Case
- Black PVD coating, sapphire crystal
- Strap
- Ostrich leather, handmade
- Price
- Set individually, in direct conversation with the watch designer.
The workshop takes on a small number of commissions each year.
The story on the dial
Turner's painting of Trafalgar, commissioned by George IV, shows the Victory losing her foremast. In the real battle, the Victory lost her mizzenmast. Turner also changed the fate of the Redoutable, which had surrendered during the fighting and sank only the next day.
These are not mistakes. The painter compressed several hours into a single image, because a canvas has no duration. The painting was given in 1829 to Greenwich Hospital, where old sailors were cared for: men who knew exactly what had been changed.
A hand-worked dial has the same problem, at a scale a hundred times smaller. A naval battle has dozens of elements, and four centimetres will not take them all. The workshop's hardest decision is not what gets painted, but what gets taken out. What stays has to read at arm's length, not under a loupe.
Sources for this text: Royal Museums Greenwich, the hidden details in Turner's painting, Royal Museums Greenwich, Queen's House.
