Top 5 Hand Engraved Watches

No two timepieces are alike, each one requiring dozens, sometimes hundreds of hours to create. They are the pride of their artisans and of their wearers, displaying a marriage of craftsmanship and artistry like no other.

1. Jaeger-LeCoutre, Reverso Tribute Enamel Horse

An addition to the Métier d’Art collection: Reverso Tribute Enamel Series, Jaeger-LeCoutre’s ‘Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Horse’’ is the culmination of 80 hours of devoted work from a master engraver of the Atelier des Métiers Rares®. The centre piece of the watch, the titular ‘Horse’, is polished by hand, it’s mane hand-drawn with black rhodium, giving it a sharp, smooth look, and lending the horse an impression of strength.

Completing the centre-piece, the clouds are sandblasted, the high pressure of abrasive materials giving a grainy, textured look to the clouds, enhancing the smooth glossy equine figure.

All these different techniques, hand-engraving, hand-drawing and sandblasting create various textures, reflecting light in various ways to give the illusion of size, depth and movement and helping enhance the horse powers.

The Horse theme was envisioned as a tribute to the zodiac sign which symbolises 2026, the watch’s release coinciding with the Lunar New Year. 

2. Roger Dubuis, Knights of the Round Table: The Metamorph Merlin

‘The Knights of the Round Table: The Metamorph Merlin’ features two major hand-engraved components. The most beautiful part of the watch has to be its case, the sides of which have been, for the first time, and to great success, engraved by hand in micro-relief to create the legendary knights in battle, Merlin in human and stag form, and a myth told in pink gold for a lucky few to wear on their wrists.

The dial is also awe-inspiring, featurin 12 individually sculpted pink gold knights, all incredibly personal, demanding a whole 36 days of craft to create. 

These key components are enhanced by the beautiful green dial, composed of an incredible 57 individual blocks, using four different decoration techniques: shot-blasted and polished glass with green CVD coating, polished pink gold, transparent glass and Crystalium. This transforms the dial into the magical forest of Brocéliande, in which Merlin famously passes through the invisible and visible worlds, morphed into a white stag: a world for the hand-engraved knights to live in, making them that much more mythical and larger than life. 

This watch that is wrought in fable and magic, through more than a hundred hours of precise hand engraving and sculpting, brings to life one of our most beloved tales.

3. Audemars Piguet, Établisseurs Peacock

The head and external details, such as the wings of the Peacock, are masterfully hand-engraved and hand-hammered in a collaboration between several artisans. The detailed components circle a colourful cartwheel tail made from translucent enamel which forms the dial. The enamelling reminiscent of the stained-glass windows of cathedrals, coupled with gem-set eyes creates bring crystalline blues and greens of unparalleled beauty to the watch lighting it up from within to further amplify the hand-engraved animal’s beauty.

4. Louis Erard, Gravée Main

Incredibly intricate, every stainless-steel element of the watch is hand engraved, from the case to the dial and bezel, creating a piece unlike any other. Ukrainian artist Maksym Shavlak devoted more than 50 hours to craft each individual watch, hand-engraving floral baroque-style patterns into the watch’s case to give it a flowing, nearly moving design which surrounds the bold large Roman numerals on the dial. 

Inspired by the vastness and beauty of the Swiss Jura region, Louis Erard sought to encapsulate all their Métiers d’Art expertise into the ‘Gravée Main’. 

This is an elegant, yet raw piece, all metal, without any bright colours, to bring focus to its design and artistry with no distractions.

5. Patek Philippe, The Crow and the Fox

Hand-sculpted, inspired by the work of Louis Cottier’s 1958 original pocket-watch, ‘The Crow and Fox’ is an immense enterprise, each watch requiring about 150 hours of manual labour to engrave and a ridiculous amount of skill to hide movement in a story so uniquely.

A veritable display of contrasting colours and materials, The Crow and the Fox is fitted with 12 layers of rose gold, yellow gold and white gold, of which 9 are hand engraved, applied onto an opaline Matara Brown background to form contrasting colours, really making the characters come to life against the smooth backdrop. So, each component is individually placed onto the opaline dial after being hand-engraved to create an image no other, a golden painting which seems to breathe with depth, relief and the movement of its inner components.

You see, The Crow and the Fox makes use of an ingenious on-demand retrograde display. The Fox’s paw and muzzle respectively indicate the hours, and the Crow’s cheese indicates the minutes. It is truly fascinating to see such precisely sculpted figures make way through the hand-engraved foliage, shifting in unison with the complex inner movement of the watch.