This year, the brand from la Chaux-de-Fonds will be celebrating its 225th anniversary. The reinterpretation of the Esmeralda is a nice way to celebrate two centuries of watchmaking for Girard-Perregaux. It was my personal crush at this year’s show. Graced with a pure yet surprising aesthetic, this timepiece is remarkable in terms of its mechanical architecture.
Historical origins
The Esmeralda Tourbillon is inspired by the Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges pocket chronometer that won the gold medal at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Girard-Perregaux quite rightly describes this timepiece, a mechanical expression of an aesthetic quest, as “majestic”.
Tourbillon with Three Bridges
The unique architecture is both surprising and entrancing. Reflecting a deliberate choice to provide a theatrical setting for the mechanism, Girard-Perregaux ‘stages’ the components of the timepiece, thereby infusing the tourbillon with an artistic dimension.
The double arrow-headed design of the bridges is entirely hand-decorated and harks back to the bridges of the historical Esmeralda. The surface of the arrows is mirror-polished. So as to further accentuate the visual contrast, the arms of the bridges are subtly and meticulously rounded with a burnisher: a tool serving to give a sheen to metallic coatings such as gold, silver or copper.
The three bridges arranged in parallel immediately draw the gaze. The decision to position the diamond-polished settings at the centre of the bridges, secured by two screws, means that the barrel, central wheel and tourbillon carriage must all be aligned along the same axis.
A steadily beating heart
Driven by a mechanical self-winding movement developed and crafted in-house, with a balance oscillating at 21,600 vibrations per hour, this timepiece has a minimum 60-hour power reserve. In the absence of a dial, the Esmeralda Tourbillon enables the eye to roam freely across the three pink gold bridges, the Dauphine-type hands, as well as the tourbillon carriage comprising 80 components entirely hand-finished by the skilled watchmaker who assembles them.
Esmeralda
In early 20th century Mexico, the watch market was dominated by ten or so watch companies, including Hauser, Zivy & Cie, a jeweller and watch retailer to whom the Girard-Perregaux watch was entrusted after the Paris exhibition. Its boutiques in both Paris and Mexico were named “La Esmeralda” and that was how the watch came by the name it still carries to this day. Shortly afterwards, the timepiece became the property of General Porfirio Diaz, then President of Mexico.
An eloquent reminder of its historical heritage, this theatrical, almost minimalist construction enabled Girard-Perregaux to win a Chronometry First Prize awarded by Neuchâtel Observatory in 1867, and thereby to establish the Swiss brand as the acknowledged master of the Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges complication.
