Space and time

With 180 skills under one roof, the Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre makes the most of its assets to create the complex Hybris Mechanica and its poetic counterpart — the Hybris Artistica.
La Grande Maison particularly draws on the dexterity of artisans at its Métiers Rares atelier for decorating the exceptional Hybris Artistica models.
Launched this month, reinterpretations of Calibres 945 and 184 highlight the artistic side of the Watchmaker of Watchmakers based in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux.
Calibre 945, born in 2010, is one of its fascinating grand complications featuring a sky chart with a celestial vault, a zodiacal calendar, a patented Cosmotourbillon as well as innovative minute repeater.
Hand-engraving adorns the new Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 945 Dragon, available in five pieces housed in a pink gold case with a diameter of 45mm.
The bezel is decorated with intricate scales like those on the two sculpted gold dragons clambering around the edge of the raised and domed sky chart disc.
The dial is constructed on multiple levels, amplifying the beauty of the celestial displays while rendering a three-dimensional habitat for the mythical creatures.
The manually-wound Calibre 945 choreographs the dragons and the sky chart as they accompany the Cosmotourbillon, which completes an anti-clockwise circuit of the dial in one sidereal day.
Jaeger-LeCoultre elevated the regulating organ with another function that measures the passing of time in one sidereal day, or precisely 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds.
The sidereal day is defined by Earth’s rotation in relation to more distant fixed stars, whereas the 24-hour solar day is measured by Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
Encircling the dial, three concentric rings carry indices for the 24 and 12 hours and the minutes of civil time, each finished with a different surface decoration to add visual depth.
The deepest level of the dial, a matte black sandblasted disc, is embellished with tiny stars, and the months along with the tourbillon seconds are marked around its periphery, with a sun-shaped gold pointer telling the date and month.
The beauty of the celestial vault is the mapping of the Northern Hemisphere night sky and tracking of the constellations in real time, as seen from the 46th parallel — the latitude of Le Sentier, where Jaeger-LeCoultre was founded in 1833.
The astronomical timekeeping is complemented by the enchanting chimes of a minute repeater equipped with several patented innovations, such as crystal gongs, trebuchet hammers and a silent interval governor.
Jaeger-LeCoultre built on its mastery in sound, precision and astronomical complications to develop Calibre 184, which debuted in 2019.
The Calibre 945 comprises 570 parts while the Calibre 184 outnumbers it with 1,052 components that take more than five months to assemble by a single watchmaker.
The manually-wound movement drives a minute repeater, a perpetual calendar plus a leaping date display as well as the Gyrotourbillon, a one-minute constant force mechanism, and a dead-beat minute hand.
The artistic expression involves Grand Feu enamelling and lacquering on the new Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 184. The geometric pattern of fine lines on the plates in black Grand Feu enamel also appears on a plate in black lacquer on each side of the case.
The decorative plates flank the subdial displaying the time and perpetual calendar with three windows for the year, month and day.
The central smoky black, semi- transparent sapphire allows a glimpse of the calendar discs while the surrounding ring is dedicated to the date, which can be reset either backwards or forwards, without damaging the mechanism.
The perpetual calendar takes into account the differences between the cycles of the heavenly bodies and the units of standard civil timekeeping. Consequently, it needs manual adjustment only in centennial years that are not also leap years.
The date indicator notably leaps from the 16th to the 17th so that its hand does not obscure the bi-axial Gyrotourbillon in the open-worked lower half of the dial.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s invention counteracts errors due to changes in gravity from any position, assuring timekeeping precision. Following its premiere in 2004, the Gyrotourbillon has evolved, with the fifth and smallest iteration spinning in the Calibre 184.
The smooth flow of energy to the Gyrotourbillon is ensured by the one-minute constant force mechanism, which also causes the minute hand to beat every 60 seconds.
This significantly benefits the minute repeater, whose hammers are set like wings on each side of the Gyrotourbillon. Instead of the usual two, four hammers — stacked in pairs — strike the black curved gongs underneath them.
The signature time-lapse reduction mechanism further ensures a smooth cadence no matter what time it is chiming.
Rather than a traditional slider or a push-button, a patented retractable pusher on the case operates the minute repeater, which plays the Westminster carillon, originally chimed by Big Ben and other bells inside London’s iconic clock tower.
Protected by seven patents, the minute repeater alone is a technical feat of haute horlogerie. The grand complication performs in a 43mm white or pink gold case, with these two versions of the Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 184 limited to five pieces each.