or Jaquet Droz, Les Volumes du Temps brings together several strands of its current identity: the exclusive production of one-off creations, an emphasis on métiers d’art and a growing relationship with contemporary artistic practice. Yet the distinctive aspect here is the origin of the design. Fiona Djukanovic is a student at the Académie de Meuron, the visual arts school in Neuchâtel that the watchmaker has supported for the past two years.

The collaboration gives that sponsorship a tangible expression. Djukanovic supplies a geometric, architectural vocabulary; the atelier in La Chaux-de-Fonds translates it into a wearable object. Scheduled for auction in New York on 5 December 2026 through TimeForArt, the watch will also fund further artistic activity. All proceeds will benefit the Swiss Institute and its exhibitions, public programmes, residencies, educational initiatives and community engagement.

An artist’s architecture

The X running across the dial offers the most immediate point of entry into the piece. It can be read as the familiar sign of collaboration – Jaquet Droz × Académie de Meuron – but it also performs a compositional role. Two opposing central volumes establish its structure, framing the time indications and dividing the surrounding enamelled areas. Their geometry combines straight edges with curved profiles, bringing the artist’s angular language into contact with the circular watch case.

These central elements resist a simple geometric description. Each has two straight sides suggesting a triangle, while a third, gently curved side follows the profile of the 41mm white gold case. Their height changes across the dial: highest towards the centre, they descend towards the periphery, where they meet the flange. This variation makes depth an organising principle. The eye follows the rise of the forms towards the displays.

Minutes are shown at the top and hours at the bottom. Both the central volumes and the surrounding motifs direct attention towards the discs. The sculpture therefore has a practical function, even as the watch invites its owner to look beyond the immediate business of checking the time.

Enamel in three dimensions

Executing this architecture in enamel is the project’s principal technical interest. Champlevé generally involves creating recesses in metal to receive enamel. Here, that vocabulary extends across a series of inclined and curved surfaces. The challenge lies in reconciling the geometry imagined by the artist with the requirements of the material, then achieving a finish that preserves the clarity of each form.

The two large applied volumes are hollow, with enamelled upper surfaces supported by concealed counter-enamel. Their profiles follow the curvature of the case middle, while the enamel slopes downwards across the upper faces. According to Jaquet Droz, this configuration made hand-polishing particularly demanding. The apparent simplicity of the finished shapes depends on work carried out along surfaces that offer little of the convenience of a flat dial.

Before enamelling, the surfaces of the central elements are engraved by hand with a sunray motif. This introduces another layer of structure beneath the colour. Geometry defines the outer shape, engraving establishes a directional pattern and enamel mediates the light reaching it. The result described by the manufacture relies as much on those interactions as on the contrast between raised and recessed areas.

On either side of the X, broad champlevé fields contain approximately forty parallelepiped motifs in varying shades of blue. These are produced using hand-applied Grand Feu enamel. Their upper surfaces descend as they approach the hours and minutes, repeating the directional movement established by the larger central forms. What might initially appear to be a decorative background becomes part of the same carefully coordinated topography.

The time discs also receive a hand-worked sunray finish, as do the central circles associated with their indications. Repetition gives the composition continuity across elements with different functions. As the angle of illumination changes, the engraved patterns, enamelled surfaces and sloping forms should produce different reflections. Light becomes an active participant in the design, altering the balance between colour, depth and the visibility of individual details.

From the classroom to the atelier

The educational partnership is equally significant. The Académie de Meuron offers a two-year multidisciplinary programme intended as a springboard into the visual and applied arts. For a student, collaboration with a specialist watchmaking atelier creates an encounter with materials, processes and constraints that a drawing alone cannot resolve. For the manufacture, it introduces a design perspective formed outside the usual codes of watch development.

TimeForArt extends this exchange beyond the workshop. The biennial charity auction brings donated watches into a collecting context while raising funds for the Swiss Institute’s artistic programmes. This will be Jaquet Droz’s first participation. The eventual buyer will acquire a singular expression of the collaboration, and the proceeds will support a broader community of artists.

That sequence gives Les Volumes du Temps a relevance beyond its sculptural dial. Institutional support has led to a student’s design, the design has mobilised specialist craftsmanship, and the resulting watch is intended to generate further support for art. The project shows what a watch manufacture can offer an emerging artist: the expertise to turn a design into a working timepiece, and a route from the studio to a collector’s wrist.