About the artwork
The blueprint captures an early stage in the development of the "King of Watchmaking Watch", conceived for the Only Watch 2023 auction and the progenitor of the Zvezdochet (Stargazer). The front side combines several complications: hours and minutes, seconds, day/night, moon phase and AM/PM. The components of the dial form an anthropomorphic composition: two large counters appear as eyes, the central indicator as a nose, and the arched cutout of the moon-phase display as a smile. This is one face of a double-sided dial: on the reverse, a different face, sad or angry, was intended, like that of the two-faced Janus.
The model's name and the notes in the margins ("King of Watchmaking", "Tsar", "King") document the search for a title for a watch meant to demonstrate the achievement and complexity of watchmaking. In this context, the dial's anthropomorphic composition reads as a manifesto image: the face of the watch becomes the face of horological art itself.
Part of the groundwork from this project passed to the Zvezdochet, for example the equation of time and the zodiac, and the double-sided case with movable lugs was first developed here.
Universum ‘Horological Graphic Art’
The model's name and the notes in the margins ("King of Watchmaking", "Tsar", "King") document the search for a title for a watch meant to demonstrate the achievement and complexity of watchmaking. In this context, the dial's anthropomorphic composition reads as a manifesto image: the face of the watch becomes the face of horological art itself.
Part of the groundwork from this project passed to the Zvezdochet, for example the equation of time and the zodiac, and the double-sided case with movable lugs was first developed here.
Time is not merely a measure. It is a philosophical dimension, an inexhaustible source of inspiration, and the central subject of my art universe.
