Founded in 1865 in Liège (Belgium), Lebeau-Courally originally specialised in bespoke collectors’ hunting arms with unique engravings – each commission demanding up to 1,000 hours of work – Lebeau-Courally has extended its activities to watches and luxury leather goods over the last years. Revealed to the world in March 2015, the prototype of Lebeau-Courally’s first manufacturers’ watch Phase de Lune now went into production.
Lebeau-Courally’s Phase de Lune reveals two firsts born from the manufacture’s DNA to create unique and hand crafted timepieces. Lebeau-Courally’s traditional clé de fusil – referring to the adorned lock on its hand crafted hunting arms – can also be found on the Phase de Lune’s watch case at 8 o’ clock. For this watch, the clé de fusil has been integrated in the date and moonphase complications of the watch and operates two functions. Pushing the lever sets the date adjustment. Pulling it, serves the adjustment of the moon phase.
For the dial of the white gold Phase de Lune, transparent blue enamel is manually brushed on a finely decorated metal lunar guilloche design base. It is then melted at over 800°C. The end result is a deep blue translucent dial with extraordinary detail and a luminosity that changes with the light shed on the dial. This technique – a very complex, labor intense and delicate process that requires the best artist skills from a Maitre Emailleur – is rarely applied in watches and goes back to an ancient tradition in handcrafting the world’s most noble watches.
The core of the production watch is still the famous LC0040 movement, beating at a frequency of 28’800 per hour, while enjoying a 100 hour power reserve. The timepiece is equipped with an alligator leather strap.
