Enamel watches must be made by hand, and the master dial pays great attention to the quality and detail of the enamel, so it is possible to select only one of the five or more dials that are produced, and continue the process.

Even the slightest flaw in the entire process can lead to the loss of previous efforts: if a particle or crack appears, the dial must be scrapped. Therefore, no matter how skilled a technician is, it will often take hundreds of hours to draw such a small plate.

For example, Suzanne Rohr, the enamel godmother who studied under Carlo Poluzzi, one of Geneva's leading figures in the world of enamel, is only able to produce 2-3 enamel watches per year, each of which is of high artistic value.

Kong Lingjun also said that the success rate of the enamel table is only 30%, and the enamel master wants to get three pieces of enamel, and it may be necessary to fire ten pieces in the early stage to produce three pieces of enamel that they are satisfied with, because the heat of firing enamel is difficult to control, and sometimes there is a little deviation, and the color of the enamel will be burned out; Sometimes, the burned enamel is prone to wear and tear if you are not careful in the process of polishing, and even in the final loading process, unexpected problems will occur, resulting in the enamel being damaged and the previous work is lost.

The world of horology is sometimes funny. There will be decades of debate over who is more powerful than the carrousel or the tourbillon, and fans will stand firm for the two major brands of diver's watches, but there will also be the same master who made enamel watches for several top brands and was promoted by the two major brands in the same year.

Sometimes, the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry's view of the gateway is very interesting to the Chinese, who are also traditional. On the one hand, they are conservative in their traditions, emphasizing seniority and mentorship, and all kinds of stories about legendary mentors are talked about, but on the other hand, they are staggeringly open to some things, such as the fact that two brands can launch the same master's enamel work at the same time in the same year.

This slightly endearing obsession makes people feel that the view of the portal in the traditional Swiss watch industry is more due to the admiration of the art itself than to the self-cherishing of the portal. This indirectly leads to the understanding of why the universal movement has played a "great" role in the revival of Swiss watchmaking.

The dial of the Roger Dubuis Muchmore model has a complex combination of curved surfaces, and such a chassis is prone to failure due to uneven stress distribution when firing enamel, so the yield is very low.

After this year's Basel, Pan Jian, a watch critic and editor-in-chief of Fashion Time, told reporters that the highlight of the show that the most impressive highlight of the show was the miniature enamel watches of Hermès and Chanel, both by the master enamel master Anita Porchet. The pocket watches she made for Hermès incorporate the "sprinkle gold" technique, in which tiny gold particles naturally "float" in transparent enamel; Chanel's "screen" enamel watch is based on the theme of Miss Coco's boudoir screen, and the charm of pen and ink is like "Suzhou embroidery".

This famous master of enamel has worked with top brands such as Piaget (according to collectors, the first to collaborate with Ainta), Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Cartier, Hermès, etc., and Patek Philippe even allowed her to sign her name on the face for the first time.

Watch collectors are happy to share that in addition to Ainta's own talent, the centuries-old enamel glazes and painting tools she inherited from her famous master Suzanne Rohr are one of the reasons why her creations are known for their "unusual jewel brilliance". Of course, anyone who tells this story will not forget to note at the end that Suzanne Rohr was taught by the famous Carlo Poluzzi, another leading figure in the world of Geneva enamellic.

The master's allusions to the rivers and lakes are always the most attractive. A few days ago, at a small watch exhibition, Ding Zhixiang, the publisher and editor-in-chief of "Chronos Watches", also said that there are fewer and fewer enamels made of glass powder, only a few masters can make them, and the others can only be replaced by mineral powders that are easier to control, but the finished product has no sense of transparency, which is very regrettable.

Nowadays, enamel is expensive, and an enamel watch can be used to drop hundreds of thousands of yuan at any time. It definitely has something to do with the masters. However, it is not just the history of the title of master consumer, but also because enamel itself is a skill with a very high threshold.

Everything involves the harmony between man and nature, which is easy to be visually disgusting, so I decided to tell you first that the enamel that has become a valuable fine craft looks delicate and gorgeous, in fact, in its first form, is also a pile of quartz (silica), feldspar, borax and other silicate (that is, common rock) substances, you can really call it simply: gravel.

When they are attached to the surface of pottery or porcelain, they are called "glaze", when they are attached to the building tiles, they are called "glaze", and when they are attached to the metal surface, they are called "enamel". When they are mixed with different metal oxides, they exhibit different brilliant colors, such as iron produces yellow, green and brown, iodine produces fiery red, copper produces blue, green and red, and manganese produces black and purple.

Technology is not a panacea, and master craftsmanship is not a simple substitute for machines. Enamel with a history of hundreds of years, has developed so far, and there are no more than ten enamel masters recognized as the top in the industry. An enamel dial needs to go through dozens of careful repeated coloring, firing, and a very high risk of damage before it can become an enamel with strong colors that will never fade, showing various graceful forms such as translucent, gradient color, and miniature painting of famous paintings.

The master dial attaches great importance to the quality and detail of the enamel, so it is possible to select only one of the five or more dials that he is satisfied with, and move on to the next process.

Even the slightest flaw in the entire process can lead to the loss of previous efforts: if a particle or crack appears, the dial must be scrapped. Therefore, no matter how skilled a technician is, it will often take hundreds of hours to draw such a small plate. Even the top brands with the blessing of master craftsmen produce only a few dozen pieces a year.

When it comes to enamel watches, you can't avoid China. Who made China a "porcelain" country, and a major craft that is famous at home and abroad is cloisonné? A large number of enamel clocks and antiques collected by the Qing court prove that the royal family and bureaucrats in the late Qing Dynasty became big buyers of Western clocks and watches more than 100 years ago, and the gorgeous enamel has almost become the unified standard of "Chinese market watches".

However, many top watch brands love enamel watches, and continue to launch enamel watches, is this a reflection of Chinese style? The Chinese people began to get entangled.

The positive performance of the Chinese market in the luxury watch market in the past two years has undoubtedly made everyone have ardent expectations for "Chinese style". In fact, as early as the Qing Dynasty, top watches were extremely interested in China, and they repeatedly studied the appreciation of Chinese and figured out the psychology of Chinese.

Gorgeous materials such as bright enamel and round pearls are found in many clocks, and even some clock movements are engraved with patterns. According to the Forbidden City Collection, the enamel watch products sold by Jaquet Droz to Cox Guangzhou Company in 1784 already include Spring Palace pocket watches with Chinese characteristics.

However, enamel pocket watches are also quite common in antique collections from other countries. Originated in Europe in the 14th century, and then became popular in France, the theme of "painting enamel" was religious. Many antique enamel surfaces are mostly based on sailing ships, such as Ulysse Nardin's "Lightning", which records the departure of the "Lightning" from Boston, USA to Liverpool in England in 1854.

Considering that Patek Philippe's interest in enamel dials was ——— the famous "World Time" in the mid-40s of the 20th century, it cannot be said that while enamel watches were loved by Chinese, they were also widely used in Western maritime culture. For Westerners, enamel may only be one of the skills that are not easy to extinguish for the sake of time, regardless of whether it is Chinese or not.

In fact, whether it is Chinese style or not, superb and exquisite master skills will always be the core value of artworks. Because a top-of-the-line watch is always about the ultimate craftsmanship that can be passed down from generation to generation, not the ups and downs of market prices.

In the middle of summer, the heat wave rolls in, like a raging fire. In the world of mechanical watches, there is also a wristwatch that was born in flames and lived in a long time: the Grand Feu enamel watch. It has been said that the art of Grand Feu enamel is the search for the eternity of color in the midst of fire.

Indeed, each Grand Feu enamel watch is a beautiful creature reborn in the flames, immortalized in flames, a brilliant colour that fights against the passage of time, satisfies people's fantasies of timelessness, and deeply ingrains the beauty of art.

The enamel dial, like the equally ancient hand-engraved dial, is a testament to the dual quest for art and craftsmanship in mechanical craftsmanship. The vivid love scenes, classic paintings, flowers, birds, insects and fish, and scenery of lakes and mountains on the dial contain profound cultural heritage and are regarded as a microcosm of European history.

In the mid-to-late 20th century, only a handful of watchmaking brands with a long and noble historical tradition remained committed to this craft, such as Blancpain.

Owned by a private collector, this Blancpain vintage miniature enamel pocket watch captures the European aristocracy's yearning for a comfortable and leisurely life through the delicate brushstrokes of the artist. On an enamel plate, an aristocratic man and his lover play on a wooden bridge in the suburbs, while the trees and grass surrounding the bezel decorate the tranquil pastoral landscape. The vivid gestures of the figures and the use of oil paintings-like colors are a testament to the mastery of Blancpain's master enamel.

It is an extremely rare process in which multiple layers of color are applied to the same enamel and then reinforced by furnace firing. Grand Feu enamel is an art that requires skillful hands and ingenuity, a game of color and temperature, and a double strict requirement of art and craftsmanship.

When coloring, grasp the order from light to dark, starting with warm colors, and paint the same color system every time. After applying a color, it is sent to an 800-degree kiln to be fired to melt the enamel, and then cooled naturally after being removed, and continued to be colored after cooling. This is repeated three times for each color application to be truly perfect.

However, every time the glaze is applied at high temperatures, there is also a risk that the finished product will be ruined. The enamel plate requires a multi-layer firing process, in which the metal plate is first bent and arched in an arc to balance the inertia contraction of the metal during firing, and then a fine enamel powder is applied to the metal plate, and finally the enamel is vitrified by high fire roasting.

Once fired, the enamel painter hand-paints the scales and indexes on the surface and then burns them again to ensure that the brand's signature plate decoration is perfectly secured to the surface.

Blancpain is a single colour of Grand Feu enamel on a single disc that is used by Blancpain in a wide range of watches because of its clean colour and classic style, which is particularly in line with the Maison's restrained tradition.

Pure black enamel is at the top of the enamel process when fired at a high temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius (up to 1,200 degrees Celsius), and Blancpain has to mix the colors several times to produce such a flawless and sophisticated deep black enamel plate over a grand flame.

The Villeret eight-day power black enamel disc is finished in black enamel, which seems to have a calm and restrained style, unlike the brightness of the painted enamel. Behind the seemingly ordinary black, it is not known that it is the most difficult to fire among the plain enamels.

If you want to achieve the highest standard of pure color and saturation, you need to glaze layer by layer in a high temperature open flame, and repeatedly fire, each of which bears a very high risk, the slightest flaw will be wasted, the black face plate is more flawed, no less than a slight, therefore, the production rate of black enamel is extremely rare, but also particularly precious. In addition, the surface finishing, shaping or window cutting of the dial is even more difficult, requiring a meticulous process to complete.

The ERET white gold white enamel plate watch features a white enamel finish with a warm and vivid glaze with a translucent feel and a lot of life. Unlike some low-temperature enamels on the market, Blancpain's master enamellers use a process of more than 900 degrees Celsius to fire the white enamel at a single time.

Due to the high temperatures, the metal tread could not be used, and the tread underneath the enamel is made of a special secret material developed exclusively by Blancpain. The enamel surface made in this way has a jewel-like luster and texture, corrosion resistance, wear resistance, high temperature resistance, waterproof and moisture-proof, hard and solid, no aging and deterioration, after thousands of years.

The enamel technique, which originated in ancient Greece, was absorbed by the watchmakers, and the scenery of lakes and mountains, birds and animals, rare flowers, and religious stories were all depicted in detail, making it the most mysterious and noble of haute horlogerie: the enamel watch.

Patek Philippe Bird of Paradise enamel watch. In addition to the meticulous craftsmanship, the elegance and spirituality of the patterns and colors demonstrate the artistic value of these watches. The bird of paradise is vividly outlined with delicate gold wire, and the sky-like blue highlights the bright feathers of the bird of paradise, and the rich and delicate color changes reproduce the brilliant colors of the bird of paradise feathers.

One of the most difficult of the "Seven Geneva Traditions" is the traditional Swiss watchmaking technique, in which porcelain painters who are well versed in both Eastern and Western painting techniques use enamel as a pigment on the dial or case with the help of a magnifying glass. The last color is sent to the furnace to be fired once, and so on until the final picture is a warm and delicate color that never fades.

Eucalyptus has observed the process of painting the enamel of Blancpain's Haute Couture model, "TheUnique", with a sable brush dipped in color and with the help of a magnifying glass. But this is only the preliminary work of enamel painting, and the more crucial part is "firing".

With each color, the dial is roasted over a large flame, and the more colors a painting has, the more often it needs to be repeated. Sometimes, when the colour of the bake is not satisfactory to the master enameller, it is put into the oven again until it is in perfect condition.

Enamel miniature painting, also known as "painting under colorless transparent glaze", flawless enamel miniature painting has become the most coveted art treasure of connoisseurs with its precious artistic value and the characteristics of no deformation and non-fading.

In fact, the art of enamelling has been inextricably linked to the watch industry since the 15th century, reaching its artistic peak in the 18th century, fascinating both the emperors and aristocrats of the East and the West.

Among them, miniature enamel is one of the most precious enamel watch crafts. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the "painting enamel" process was introduced to China, and was developed in the Kang, Yong, and Qian dynasties, but it was mostly used for large and small utensils, ornaments, and furniture.

In cloisonné enamel by marquetry, the area to be decorated is hollowed out with a carving knife to create grooves that create decorative patterns on the gold dial plate.

The "cloisonné enamel" was transmitted to China during the Mengyuan and Yuan dynasties, and has made great progress, and "cloisonné" is a well-known example. Cloisonné enamel can be called half of the sky of the enamel color plate, and it is no wonder that when the Shen Jiu ascended to the sky last year, FIYTA used cloisonné enamel decoration on the space watch specially made for female astronauts.

Generally speaking, it is believed that cloisonné enamel is slightly less difficult than miniature enamel, but the dial is more bright and eye-catching, and the key lies in the "filigree". The fine sparkle of the wire thread on the dial is matched by the warm luster of the enamel.

The dials presented by the two processes of miniature enamel and cloisonné enamel are naturally very different in temperament. The former picture is warm and unpretentious; The latter is blessed with gold threads, and it is domineering and exposed, because it is also differentiated in the theme of good performance.

Miniature enamel has a unique advantage in expressing the expressive scene of oriental ink painting, and the illustration pages of the characters in the Ming and Qing dynasties are also very beautiful and elegant, and because of the rich color, it is often used to copy Western oil paintings with religious themes.

Cloisonné enamel, with its clear lines and distinct colours, is more suitable for expressing close-ups of birds and animals and gorgeous flowers, with its intense color and presence that is unforgettable. Last year, a large number of watch brands invariably used cloisonné enamel to make majestic golden dragons, and this year they continue to use it to make snakes.

However, in the circle of fans, the dispute between cloisonné enamel and miniature enamel has to be raised from time to time, and miniature enamel often has the upper hand. A jewellery design teacher believes that the thickness of cloisonné enamel threads is relatively simple, and it is easy to appear rigid. In the view of the enamel craftsman Tan Tan, cloisonné enamel reflects the beauty of lines, and miniature enamel presents the beauty of painting.

For collectors, owning an enamel watch is one of the ultimate pursuits. Among them, the difficult process and low success rate are particularly precious, not to mention that the color of the same glaze will be different every time it is fired.