A true work of art is one way to describe the incredibly beautiful and complex Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater watch. This watch doesn’t come with fancy chronographs or tourbillons; rather it’s made with an emphasis on art. I was pretty impressed with the Jaquet Droz Petite Heure Minute watch I wrote about last year but the Bird Repeater blows that watch out of the water. This watch is now officially my favorite high-end watch, a watch that will only be worn on very special occasions (if I owned one).
Where to begin? The main time-telling part of the watch is quite small and isn’t really the focus of here, however, it is there. There is a small black sub-dial with a minute and hour hand at the top of the watch, the dial is surrounded by a beautiful hand-painted scene of a mama and papa-bird sitting in a nest next to two baby birds, soon to be three. The background features a forest and a river with a waterfall, which is animated with the water actually going over the edge (see video below).
The Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater watch features a minute repeater automaton, the minute repeater chimes at the top of the hour, quarter hour, and minute (depending on the setting) and at the press of a button/switch on the side of the watch. The automaton is the other complication which shows the mama-bird feeding a worm to the baby birds, the egg hatching and revealing a tiny bird, and papa-bird spreading his wings and bobbing his head in approval. Quite a lot of action taking place on a mechanical machine that’s small enough to sit on top of a wrist.
The Jaquet Droz Bird Repeater watch comes in a 47mm case wide and 18.4 mm thick, normally I don’t like big watches but considering how many cools things this watch does, it’s acceptable. The dial is covered with sapphire crystal and so is the case-back that showcases the movement, which is quite nice looking, and is attached to a black alligator leather strap. The watches are limited to 16 pieces total, 8 in 18k rose gold and 8 in white gold with diamonds.
The watch is powered by a 508 piece in-house Jaquet Droz hand-wound mechanical Caliber RMA88 movement with 69 jewels and 48 hour power reserve. The Bird Repeater watch comes with a lot of cool features but it also has a hefty price tag of $472,500 for the 18k rose gold version and $493,500 for the 18k white gold with diamonds version. This watch timepiece is truly an incredible work of art, I know I’ll never own it but I do hope to see one in person some day.
Jaquet Droz The Bird Repeater Watch Pictures
