A Rotonde de Cartier ‘Mysterious Hours’ In Pink Gold
A mystery clock for the wrist.
There are a number of different ways in which a complication can be presented in a wristwatch. Historically, complications have been produced in the service of presenting information in addition to the time, and since this additional information requires additional displays, the classic approach was to emphasize the clear display of that information and leave it at that (the Patek ref. 1518 is a case in point). Another possible approach is to celebrate mechanical complexity for its own sake – a complicated watch with an open dial that lets you see the racks and snails in a striking watch, like a repeater, or grande et petite sonnerie, for instance; the Philippe Dufour Grande Sonnerie is a very aristocratic example. During the mid-2000s, Cartier took a very different approach to complicated watchmaking, with its Fine Watchmaking Collection, which featured complications in which mechanical complexity was at the service of creating visual and aesthetic effects. One of the purest examples of this approach, from Cartier, during this time period, is the Rotonde de Cartier Mysterious Hours.
The Mysterious Hours is essentially a Cartier mystery clock for the wrist. Cartier’s mystery clocks are a range of clocks in which the hour and minute hands appear to be suspended in midair, and seem to move without any visible mechanical connection to the rest of the clock.
Mystery clocks were originally invented, perhaps unsurprisingly, by a magician, and no ordinary magician either. Jean-Eugéne Robert-Houdin is often considered the father of modern stage magic, although he was as interested in watchmaking as he was in prestidigitation. He was in fact the son of a watchmaker who intended to follow in his father’s footsteps, and his interest in stage magic came about as a result of a mistake in an order he’d placed for books on horology by the famous French chronometer maker, Ferdinand Berthoud. What he got in the mail instead, was a two volume set of books on stage magic, called Scientific Amusements, and he would eventually go on to create such classic illusions as “The Marvellous Orange Tree,” in which a lady’s handkerchief, borrowed from the audience, would be made to vanish, and then appear inside an opened orange plucked from a miniature orange tree on stage.
An accomplished mechanic and maker of automatons, Robert-Houdin’s first mystery clocks were made in the mid-1830s, and over the next few decades both mystery watches and clocks were made, albeit in very small numbers. I think it’s safe to say that it was Cartier who really put them on the map when they came out with their first mystery clock – named, prosaically enough, the Model A – in 1912; the Model A was designed and constructed by clockmaker Maurice Coüet, and the Cartier mystery clocks would evolve into some of the most spectacular mechanical timepieces of all time.
The illusion was very deftly handled in Cartier’s mystery clocks and the Rotonde de Cartier Mysterious Hours is just as convincing. The basic mechanical solution is the same as for the mystery clocks – the hands are affixed to disks of synthetic sapphire (or rock crystal, in the case of the original mystery clocks) which carry the hands around the dial as the disks rotate. The disks themselves have gear teeth on their peripheries, which are hidden under the chapter ring, and which allow the disks to be driven by the going train. The mechanism is actually a quite simple one, but the secret is not immediately obvious – so much so that when Cartier began showing the Model A clock in its Paris boutique, staff were deliberately not told how they worked, in the same way that magicians avoid explaining their effects.
The entire movement, including the going train, balance, mainspring barrel, and keyless works for winding and setting, are distributed along the periphery of the mystery time display. You can see one of the driving wheels for the sapphire disks under a cock at about 8:00 in the image. The regulator index is in the shape of the Cartier letter C, and can be micro adjusted with the eccentric screw clamped in the opening of the letter.
Integrating the mechanism with the mystery display necessarily means a somewhat larger watch and the Rotonde de Cartier Mysterious hours is 42mm x 11.5mm, although the lugs are set quite close to the case, which has recesses milled into it to allow the ends of the strap to fit very closely to the case itself. The size of the watch is partly due to engineering constraints – thanks to the sapphire disks, the actual mechanism takes up only about half the internal volume of the watch – but it also means the mystery display can be larger and more dramatic.
The Fine Watchmaking Collection was produced from 2008 up to around 2018, and in its heyday, included a wide range of innovative complicated watches, many of which were thematic variations on the mystery clocks – the Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon is another example and just one of many. The Fine Watchmaking Collection debuted when the Collection Privée Cartier Paris watches were discontinued (the CPCP watches were produced from 1998 to 2008) and in 2017, Cartier launched the Privé Collection as the cornerstone of the strategy it has pursued with great success ever since, which is to emphasize the history Cartier has as designer of watches, rather than as a technical innovator per se. There is good reason for this – for much of Cartier’s history, it was famous for its mastery of case geometry, although it’s also true that it was perfectly capable of presenting technical innovations if they were done in the context of design, and the list of models introduced by Cartier between the early 1900s and the mid-1930s is an honor roll of classics. But the Fine Watchmaking Collection remains a fascinating period of experimentation for the Jeweler of Kings and the King of Jewelers, as Cartier is sometimes called – a period when Cartier was also vying for the title of Watchmaker’s Watchmaker.
For information on pricing and availability of this pre-owned Cartier Rodonde de Cartier Mysterious Hours, contact the 1916 Company.