Monsieur Bovet Tribute to Edouard Bovet
- Category
- Artistic Crafts
- Case
- Red gold
- Movement
- Manual-winding mechanical Power reserve: 168 h, 21600 vph Skeleton movement
- Functions
- Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Power reserve indicator
- Size
- ø 43.1 mm
- Thickness
- 12.7 mm
- Water resistance
- 30 m
- Reference
- AI43534/XX/G1
- Price
- 160,000 CHF
Description
Edouard Bovet’s journey to China in 1818 marked the beginning of one of Swiss watchmaking’s most remarkable stories. Born in Fleurier to a watchmaking family and trained in sales in London, he arrived in Guangzhou with four pocket watches, selling them almost immediately, and he went on to establish BOVET as a benchmark of Swiss horology in China. This timepiece distills that voyage into a miniature work of art.
The front dial depicts the tall ship The Orville in hand-executed miniature painting, enhanced with bright Super‑LumiNova that reveals the scene at night. The waves and the sun are hand‑engraved in 18K red gold, while the entire case, bow, attachments, and buckle are decorated with BOVET’s signature Fleurisanne engraving, requiring approximately 130 hours of work. On the reverse side, an off‑set dial crafted from actual stone from the Château de Môtiers reveals the in‑house movement, including BOVET’s own hairspring and regulating organ. The stone is quite fragile, so for every completed dial, six others end up broken on the workshop floor.
The Monsieur Bovet is in the Amadeo system, so it is four timepieces in one – able to be worn on both sides, used as a table clock, or as a pocket timepiece with the provided chain.
A distillation of Edouard Bovet’s trip to China, this timepiece honors the legacy of the 204-year old House of BOVET, which put the village of Fleurier on the watchmaking map. The Monsieur Bovet Tribute to Edouard Bovet is a masterpiece of the skills that owner Pascal Raffy has worked tirelessly to keep alive.s.
Supplied by the brand to the GPHG for its entry.