Rock Crystal Is Back in (Watch) Style

Ornamental gems have adorned watches for hundreds of years. However, past diamonds and the basic trinity of rubies, emeralds and sapphires, a colorless number of quartz known as rock crystal truly is the stone used most frequently in horology.

But, “as a cloth, not lots of people learn about it,” stated Tom Heap, deputy director and head of watch gross sales at Sotheby’s London. “However I believe with the best way we’re seeing watch manufacturers function these days, you’re seeing a return to low manufacturing and nearly a form of historic watchmaking. It’s like a painter trying again on the previous masters.”

Van Cleef & Arpels and Chanel have been among the many manufacturers to showcase new timepieces set with rock crystal at Watches and Wonders Geneva, the weeklong commerce present ending Monday — creations that highlighted not solely the manufacturers’ stonecutting and setting know-how, however which additionally confirmed off the bizarre options of this much less acquainted gemstone.

Shaped of oxygen and silicon, two of essentially the most ample components within the Earth’s crust, rock crystal takes its identify from the traditional Greek phrase krustallos, which means “frozen ice,” and has lengthy been admired for its glass-like properties.

A number of the earliest examples of ornamental rock crystal will be traced to historical Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, the place it was utilized in ornaments together with vessels and collectible figurines, in keeping with Helen Molesworth, a gemologist and the senior curator of bijou on the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The traditional Romans carved pictures and different sacred symbols into the stone, creating seals and intaglios. “I simply noticed that there’s even a Roman rock crystal spoon within the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York, which is simply attractive,” Ms. Molesworth stated. “After which it had large reputation, not a lot a revival, simply huge reputation, within the tenth and eleventh centuries with Fatimid carved vessels and exquisite Egyptian carvings.” (The Fatimid dynasty dominated North Africa and later a lot of the Center East.)

In additional fashionable occasions, rock crystal was championed within the early 1900s by Cartier, which created the primary thriller clocks, timepieces whose palms appeared to drift freely over a dial sometimes encased in rock crystal.

“Due to this sort of transparency, rock crystal has been related to issues like purity, air and water all through time,” Ms. Molesworth stated. “It additionally has sensible purposes so it’s good for all of those sorts of objects as a result of it’s imbued with significance.”

This week, that transparency was showcased within the Woman Arpels Nuit Enchantée watch by Van Cleef & Arpels, offered at Watches and Wonders Geneva and certainly one of two new additions to the model’s Extraordinary Dials assortment of limited-edition timepieces.

The 41-millimeter white gold mannequin featured a dial of rock crystal, totaling 11.8 carats, with rose gold indexes. The watch, made with conventional métiers d’artwork methods resembling marquetry, together with plique-à-jour, façonné and grisaille enameling, exhibits a fairy’s go to to a moonlit cave — the cave and the bezel encrusted with 25 yellow sapphires, 11 carats of purple sapphires and 280 spherical white diamonds.

Rainer Bernard, director of analysis and growth of watches for Van Cleef & Arpels, stated the corporate has used rock crystal since its founding in 1906 on luxurious objects resembling platinum and sapphire pocket watches and Artwork Deco desk clocks. The attract, he famous, lies within the stone’s mushy luster and sturdiness.

“It’s truly a pleasant materials to work with,” he stated. “It has a hardness of seven, so it’s not brittle, like opal, for instance.” He was referring to the Mohs hardness scale, which measures a mineral’s resistance to scratching on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the toughest. “There are not any particular precautions to take, you may work it very well.”

For the Woman Arpels Nuit Enchantée watch, conventional lapidary instruments have been used on the crystal to make an octagonal emerald lower with a double aspect on the decrease edge, to create a reflective floor. “Due to the lower, it seems just like the indexes hover within the air and this creates quantity,” Mr. Bernard stated. “This truly creates play with the sunshine and was vital as a component of our cave.”

Chanel, which offered its first assortment of watches in 1987, additionally experimented with rock crystal this 12 months for its Crystal Lion Lengthy Necklace, launched at Watches and Wonders as a part of the model’s Time of the Lion assortment.

Taking inspiration from the chandelier in 31 Rue Cambon, the home’s flagship in Paris, the necklace’s quartz-powered timepiece contains a yellow gold pendant within the form of a lion’s head, with a tassel made from rock crystal. The piece is accented with 19 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds and a princess-cut middle diamond.

Sometimes rock crystal has made the leap into high jewelry, too. Frédéric Boucheron, who based his namesake Parisian jewellery home in 1858, was an early pioneer in pairing rock crystal with diamonds.

Claire Choisne, Boucheron’s artistic director since 2011, typically makes use of the stone, too, most not too long ago within the Power of Couture, a excessive jewellery assortment offered in January that matched rock crystal with white diamonds, and showcased the stone within the type of tubes, chevrons and engraved medallions.

For instance, the Tricot choker used 5 strands of sandblasted rock crystal, completed with diamond-set chevron hyperlinks and a central button that includes a 2.01-carat diamond.

One other necklace, the Noeud, featured 435 baguette-cut rock crystals mounted in a white gold framework formed like a bow. The necklace, with a 4.05-carat pear-shape diamond at its middle, could also be reworked right into a brooch or a shoulder adornment.

“Rock crystal, which symbolizes knowledge and foresight, is certainly one of my favourite stones,” Ms. Choisne wrote in an electronic mail. She famous that, whereas the stone “was lengthy not thought-about valuable in excessive jewellery, Boucheron has celebrated it for hundreds of years.”

“I additionally imagine that the monochrome side of rock crystal brings fashion and modernity to the jewellery,” she added.

Will the crystal proceed to be standard in excessive watchmaking and jewellery?

“The readability of rock crystal as a quartz is clearly its attraction,” stated Ms. Molesworth, who famous that its look on latest watch fashions was a mirrored image of its many ornamental and sensible makes use of, qualities she expects will proceed to draw watchmakers.

“It’s giant, it’s accessible and it’s carvable,” she stated. “So that you’ve acquired an ideal mixture of assorted completely different qualities on this materials.”