n these early days of spring, the true showstoppers among the hundreds of timepieces exhibited across Geneva were found not in the vast halls of the Watches and Wonders fair but on the city’s waterfront, on the top floors of the Patek Philippe Salons, where the view of the lake, the world-famous Jet d’Eau, the boats, the stone buildings lining the quayside, the mountains in the distance and a few lazy seagulls hovering in the sky formed a natural backdrop for the finest handcrafted pieces by the Geneva Manufacture.

The Salons were home to the Rare Handcrafts 2025 exhibition of 78 truly remarkable timepieces: a masterclass in Grand Feu enamel, cloisonné enamel, enamel miniature painting, grisaille enamel, flinqué enamel, paillonné enamel, Fauré enamel, Longwy enamel on faience (a rarity), hand-engraving, hand-guilloché and wood marquetry.

These expert decorative techniques served 44 Calatrava and Golden Ellipse wristwatches, ten pocket watches, an exceptional desk clock with a perpetual calendar and week-of-the-year display in sterling silver, enhanced with panels in green Grand Feu flinqué enamel over an undulating guilloché motif, together with 23 Dome table clocks and small clocks. Artistic inspirations combined practices, matching cloisonné enamel with paillonné enamel, for example, or miniature painting with engraving.

These inspirations borrow from the cultures, landscapes, animals and blooms of every continent, from the lavender fields, vines and olive groves of southern France to the Amazonian rainforest’s lush green, spectacular birds, pythons and jaguars. Bezels are set with stones whose colours are those of plumage, such as the topaz, blue sapphires, yellow sapphires and diamonds of Reference 5077/212G-001 “Macaw on a Blue Ground”. There are also bears in the mist and a Chinese landscape, while other pieces illustrate human endeavours, with designs inspired by painting, music, literature, architecture, sport, even wine-growing.

The plant world and its extraordinary repertoire of forms and colours is recreated through a range of techniques (cloisonné enamel, Longwy enamel on faience, paillonné and gem-set Fauré enamel and grisaille enamel with blanc de Limoges) on Dome table clocks and small clocks whose decors range from the country charm of wildflowers – poppies, daisies and cornflowers – to Japanese- and Indian-inspired floral designs.

The Geneva Harbor Dome table clock

Among the array of inspirations from around the world, one piece in particular caught our attention, its design much closer to home. A masterwork of hand-craftsmanship, this Dome table clock is the first ever in wood micro-marquetry. It recreates, with extraordinary precision and in fine detail, Geneva harbour. A mirror image of the view from our vantage point in the Patek Philippe Salons on the city’s most famous thoroughfare, Rue du Rhône. This is, without contest, a museum-worthy creation, from an artistic perspective but also because it is the first time marquetry has been applied with such micro-precision not to a dial, but to the curved forms of a Dome table clock, to stunning effect.

Geneva’s emblematic harbour, its famous Jet d’Eau, lighthouse and a traditional sailing barque are reproduced all the way around the clock in a manner that is both hyper-realist yet touchingly pictorial, in the sepia tones of old postcards. Such subtle rendition and wealth of detail are quite simply astounding: light skimming the ripples across the surface of the lake, trails of clouds, the transparency of the water and the air, seagulls in mid-flight and the mists over the mountains…

A particularly complex technique

To achieve a result of this calibre, Patek Philippe’s master marqueteur Jérôme Boutteçon — Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 1994 and considered the inventor of wood marquetry on watch dials (read more about him in the December 2023 issue of Europa Star) — assembled 1,991 veneer pieces and 200 tiny inlays, each meticulously selected and hand-cut from 41 species of wood with different colours, grains and veining.

As the artist explained, having previously crafted wood micro-marquetries for flat circular dials (his “Portrait of a Samurai” is an outstanding example), this was the first time he had to create a much larger piece and, if this weren’t already a sufficient challenge, apply it to a convex surface. The solution was for the master artisan to complete the marquetry as a single flat piece, which he then divided into four vertical sections, later joined by gilded brass uprights.

Among the exceptional timepieces created for the Watch Art Tokyo 2023 The “Portrait of a Samurai” pocket watch (995/131G-001) stands out as one of the most complex decorations in wood marquetry ever created by Patek Philippe. The marquetry artisan has cut and assembled an incredible 800 veneer parts and 200 tiny inlays spanning a palette of 53 species of wood in a multitude of colours, textures and veining.

The difficulties and constraints when cutting the individual elements, using a pedal saw or a micro-handsaw, were made even greater by the very real possibility that the tiniest elements could pop out, or the wood split, when the flat marquetry was curved to mirror the Dome clock’s rounded surface.

In response, Jérôme Boutteçon innovated by developing techniques of moulding and counter-moulding that ensure the long-term stability of the wood.

These risks and complexities are on a par with the infinitely tiny details, the small finishing touches, not least to introduce a transparent quality to the water of the lake and the Jet d’Eau. First, the master marqueteur tackled the sky and clouds, formed as a single piece and taking advantage of the natural wood veins, as well as the transparent water and ripples of the lake. The decor then came to life with the mountains on the horizon, the buildings along the quayside, the Jet d’Eau, the sailing boats plying the lake and the seagulls in flight. Close observation reveals the captivating details such as the rigging of the boats, the seagulls’ beaks or the microscopic figures steering the craft.

This complex and meticulous process unfolded over a good third of the past year, from the preliminary sketches to selection of the woods for their grain and colour, cutting, adjusting and gluing the individual elements, until the final application of a matte varnish which brings out and enhances the colours of the wood and its harmony of tones.

Also for the first time, the clock’s dome was hand-turned in Geneva in spalted beech wood. Calibre 17’’’ PEND, a mechanical pocket-watch movement wound by a small electric motor, drives the polished leaf-shaped hands in rose gilt. They sweep a brown lacquer hour circle, with polished and applied Roman numerals in rose gilt, which surrounds the dial centre in wood marquetry.

Emotion

“Emotion” is an overused word in watchmaking circles, yet there can be no denying the profound emotion this exceptional clock inspires. An emotion stirred not only by the unbelievable dexterity such craftsmanship implies but also by the immense poetry that radiates from every millimetre. We lose ourselves in the transparency of the water, the clouds recreated from the natural veins of the wood, the palette of sepia tones, the scene that comes alive before our eyes. As one observer exclaimed, “It’s Geneva in a clock!”