Memento Mori
A dial in mixed techniques, with micro-engraving and diamonds, carrying an hourglass with sand.
- Level
- Deluxe
- Diameter
- 44 mm
- Calibre
- ETA 2892, modifiedSwiss automatic calibre
- Dial
- Mixed techniques, micro-engraving, diamonds
- Case
- Sapphire crystal
- Strap
- Blue ostrich leather, handmade by Vasile Uglai
- 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
The idea is not new to horology: it is four hundred years old. The British Museum holds a silver watch in the shape of a skull, built in Germany between 1655 and 1665, with a verge movement and a jaw hinged at the back. Latin mottoes are engraved on the case: vita fugitur, life flees, and incerta hora, the hour is unknown. The museum notes that watches of this shape were a fashion in the seventeenth century.
The reason is simpler than it looks. An object that measures time is the only place where remembering that time runs out is not morbid, but exact.
On this dial, the hourglass holds real sand. The press that wrote about the piece counted around ninety diamonds. The stone that does not wear, set beside the only part of the watch that empties.
Sources for this text: The British Museum, German skull watch, 1655-1665.
