There is something primordially exciting about the art of grand feu enamel. I say the “art” of enamel, but there is an equal part of it that belongs in the scientific domain. There is that touch of alchemy, with its glass phials of brightly coloured powders and glowing kilns that effectuate the transmutation of matter. Because vitreous enamel is essentially powdered borosilicate glass, coloured by metal oxides, chemistry and material science forms a key part of an enameller’s training. While we may like to cling to the romantic notions of artisanal craft being a purely creative endeavour, inspired by the Muses and driven by passion, every practitioner of the métiers d’art I’ve spoken to is adamant about the nature of their work being rigorous, meticulous and knowledge-based.
From this angle, I make very little distinction between watchmaking and its associated decorative techniques. We may refer to them as “art” in an everyday sense, using phrases like “the art of watchmaking” or “the art of grand feu enamel” — in fact, I did precisely that at the opening of this article. But they are more properly described as disciplines, rather than arts (unless you return to the Latin etymology of the word, but that’s another discussion for another time).
Which brings us very nicely to the Louis Vuitton Voyager Tourbillon Volant Poinçon de Genève Plique-à-jour. Firstly, this is an uncategorisable watch. You cannot label it a métiers d’art watch or a technical watch, because both its mechanical and decorative qualities equally strong. I just want to say that right away, because there’s one side of this watch that I’ll be focusing on much more than the other. I think it’s pretty obvious which side that is, given the title of this article.
Before we get onto that, let’s briefly discuss the movement, the manual winding cal. LV 104. As you might have surmised from the name of the watch, the Voyager Tourbillon Volant Poinçon de Genève Plique-à-jour is certified with the prestigious Geneva Seal. Before 2012, the Geneva Seal was a quality assurance associated primarily with the finishing of a watch movement; subsequent revisions to its legislation expanded the scope of the Geneva Seal to include certification of the entire assembled watch and its chronometric performance.
Having the Geneva Seal on a flying tourbillon watch is not as easy as you might think — while the tourbillon was invented as a mechanical solution to address certain problems of precision timing in personal timepieces, in practice a tourbillon can actually detract from the timekeeping ability of a movement, due to its high energy requirements. A flying tourbillon compounds this risk, since its cantilevered construction is inherently less stable. You can therefore imagine how exceptionally well regulated the cal. LV 104 needs to be in order to be certified. In fact, you don’t need to imagine anything at all; you can see for yourself, thanks to the transparent caseback and plique-à-jour enamel dial.
(Very nice transition, Suzanne, I hear you murmur. Why, thank you very much, I’m rather pleased with it, myself.)
Plique-à-jour enamel is an extremely rare enamel technique that we see only in a handful of pieces — years can go by without a new watch featuring this type of enamelling. And although you don’t see it very often, it’s not something you forget once you do. Its appearance is similar to stained glass, featuring panels of enamel that are held in place only via their peripheral edges. As such, you can see through a plique-à-jour enamel work completely, as you would a stained-glass window.
The reason we don’t see plique-à-jour enamel too often is simply that it’s an extremely delicate and complex enamel technique, even more so than the other enamel techniques, which is saying something. The number of enamellers who practice this technique is exceedingly small, and the failure rate of each individual work is extremely high. You might not be surprised to hear that the specific method of applying the plique-à-jour enamel also contributes to its level of difficulty, and Louis Vuitton have opted for the most challenging technique to create their dial.
To help keep the enamel powder in position while the dial is being created, some plique-à-jour techniques make use of a temporary backing that is later removed (through abrasives or dissolved in an acid bath). The dial of the Louis Vuitton Voyager Tourbillon Volant Poinçon de Genève Plique-à-jour is made without this mechanical aid — the applied enamel is held in place via surface tension alone and then fired at specific temperatures that cause the enamel to fuse together without completely melting, since that would cause the molten enamel to fall out.
As you can imagine, there is greater success using this technique with the enamel held in small enclosures that allow surface tension to keep the material in place. In general, it is recommended that the enamel enclosures should not measure more than 0.5cm at their widest point. The large enamel cells of the Voyager dial, therefore, represent a significant challenge to be addressed by the Louis Vuitton enamellers — a challenge that has clearly been met.
The Louis Vuitton Voyager Tourbillon Volant Poinçon de Genève Plique-à-jour would be impressive enough if it had been launched on its own. The fact that it was announced alongside a whole fleet of other Louis Vuitton métiers d’art watches sets the tone for the Maison for the years to come.
