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Introducing The Louis Vuitton Escale Métiers D’Art ‘Cabinet Of Wonders’ Carp, Serpent, And Dragon

Three new Métiers D’Art masterpieces from Louis Vuitton are inspired by the obsessions of Gaston-Louis Vuitton

Jack Forster10 Min ReadMar 6 2024

If it didn’t seem inappropriate to call such a dignified person by such a colloquial term, you might say that Gaston-Louis Vuitton was a character. A grandson of Louis Vuitton, Gaston-Louis Vuitton was born in 1883 and would begin leading Louis Vuitton in 1936, upon the death of his father, Georges Vuitton. Gaston-Louis has been described as the aesthete of the family and aside from his long life and long stewardship of the company (he passed away in 1970) he is perhaps best known today for his incredible activities as a collector.

Zoom InGaston-Louis Vuitton; image, Louis Vuitton

He collected a wide variety of objects, and among these were an enormous number of tsuba – the handguards found on Japanese swords. The Japanese sword is generally and I think rightly perceived as an austerely pure object, but both swords and scabbards had a number of sometimes very beautifully and elaborately crafted mountings. Characteristically, the makers of Japanese swords did not distinguish between the physical and functional aspects of their work, and Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s collection included over 800 examples.

Zoom InTsuba with carp and seaweed motif, 1886; made by Kansai (1841-1918), Iwamoto School. Metropolitan Museum Of Art.Zoom InFrom the archives: two tsuba from the extensive collection of Gaston-Louis Vuitton

The close integration of function with craftsmanship and artistry is of course, one of the most fundamental characteristics of fine watchmaking, and Louis Vuitton’s new collection – the Escale Métiers d’Art Cabinet Of Wonders – are inspired by Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s huge collection of Japanese sword guards. There are three watches, with three motifs – Carp, Serpent, and Dragon – and each watch brings together both fine watchmaking as well as several different decorative arts in each watch. The animals shown on the dials are shown on some of the tsuba which are part of Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s enormous collection.

Each of the Cabinet of Wonders watches explores its design motif in different ways – a wide range of decorative crafts have been deployed to create each watch, including straw, wood, and parchment marquetry, engraving, and a number of different enameling techniques, some of them very rare.

Zoom InThe monogram of Gaston-Louis Vuitton, thought to have been created around 1910; image, Louis Vuitton

Each dial is also decorated with an interpretation of the monogram which Gaston-Louis Vuitton designed for himself.

Each of the Cabinet of Wonders watches is powered by the micro-rotor caliber LFT023, manufactured by Louis Vuitton’s long time partner, Le Cercle des Horlogers, and finished and assembled at La Fabrique du Temps. The movement’s rose gold microrotor, as well as the bridges, have been decorated with engraving in the Japanese “seigaiha” pattern – the term means “blue sea and waves” and the pattern first appeared in Japan around the sixth century.

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The use of Japanese design elements extends even to the straps of the watches. The straps are patterned after the wrapping found on the grip of the Japanese sword. Called tsuka-maki, this wrapping was applied over a layer of rayskin and the composition and combination of the wrapping and the underlying rayskin were essential contributors to the handling characteristics of the sword.

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The various decorative elements of the watches were inspired by Louis Vuitton’s La Maison Asnières, in Asnières-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris. The location is the historic home of Louis Vuitton’s trunk manufacturing, having been established by Louis Vuitton in 1859. The Louis Vuitton family home is located there as well, and it was extensively renovated in the late 19th century by Georges Vuitton, the son of Louis Vuitton, in the Art Nouveau style.

Zoom InInterior, Louis Vuitton family home, Asnières, with Art Deco stained glass windows by Janin. Image, The 1916 Company

Michel Navas, master watchmaker and co-founder of Manufacture La Fabrique du Temps, in Geneva, told the New York Times that Louis Vuitton wanted to express the spirit of La Maison Asnières in the watches. He told the Times, “We wanted to pay tribute to Mr. Gaston-Louis Vuitton and the heritage of La Maison Asnières.” The seigaiha pattern found on the movements and cases of the watches can be found on fireplace tiles at the Asnières family home. Navas added, “He was a big collector and he loved art, furniture and architecture, and was fond of Japanese art … this Escale triptych is inspired by his love of Japanese culture.”

Zoom InLouis Vuitton family home, Asnières; left, fireplace with seigaiha pattern tiles. Image, The 1916 Company

The creative director for the project, Marie Boutteçon, has created designs in the past for clients such as Christophe Claret and Parmigiani Fleurier, and is no stranger to the exotic crafts deployed in the Cabinet of Wonders watches – her father, Jérôme Boutteçon, is a wood marquetry master who has created watches for Patek Philippe.

This combination of talents, artistic crafts, and various sources of inspiration have produced three watches which set a high water mark thus far for métiers d’art watches in 2023.

The Koi’s Garden

The Koi’s Garden watch depicts two koi, which is a collective term for different types of Japanese carp, bred for decorative purposes and thought to symbolize courage and resilience. The Koi’s Garden carp are sculpted out of white gold, which is kiln-fired to produce an oxide layer.

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The oxide layer is then engraved by hand to uncover the white gold underneath in order to depict the scales of the fish.

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Finally, the fish are coated in translucent blue lacquer, in order to give color, depth, and iridescence.

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The pebbles surrounding the carp are made of smoky quartz, mother of pearl, and rock crystal, some of which are diamond set, to evoke the appearance of sunlight on water.

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The entire composition sits on a white gold plate, engraved to resemble flowing water, and the whole thing is anchored by Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s personal monogram at 6:00, in gold set with onyx.

The Snake’s Jungle

The Snake’s Jungle watch depicts a reticulated serpent – the term “reticulated” means a snake whose markings resemble a net.

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The jungle background represents a bamboo forest and was created using a quite unusual combination of marquetry techniques, incorporating straw, parchment and wood, in a total of 14 different shades of green – there are four types of wood, three different colors of straw, and two different types of parchment which all together make up the 367 individual elements of the bamboo forest.

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For a few years in the mid-2000s several different brands showed marquetry dials using unusual techniques like straw and feather marquetry (Cartier and Dior, for instance) but this type of marquetry dial is to say the least unusual in contemporary watches. The marquetry for the Snake’s Jungle was created by Rose Saneuil, one of the few artisans to specialize in this rare technique – one recent example of her work, for the dial of the Piaget Undulata watch, took the Artistic Crafts prize at the 2023 edition of the GPHG.

The bamboo forest marquetry alone would make this an unusual piece of sophisticated craftsmanship, but it’s not alone.

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The body and head of the serpent is sculpted in white gold, and the scales are decorated with alternating V-motifs and LV Monogram flowers. The scales form individual cells which are then filled with enamel and fired; this particular technique is called champlevé enameling, which is also used for the bamboo leaves on the upper right.

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Traditional vitreous enameling involves grinding glass pigments into a very fine powder, which is then mixed with a binder before being applied to the work in progress. The enamelist judges the readiness of the powder from not only its appearance in the mortar and pestle, but also from the sound it makes as it breaks down.

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The case is engraved with a bamboo leaf motif as well, and between the serpent and the bamboo leaves, is the GLV monogram.

Dragon’s Cloud

The third of the Cabinet Of Wonders watches is the Dragon’s cloud, which shows an Asian dragon holding an orb in its claws in the shape of a carnelian-set GLV monogram. Asian dragons are often shown clutching a flaming pearl in their talons.

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The dragon is a mythical beast in both Asian and Western cultures, but while the Western dragon is generally depicted as a gold-hoarding, and often fire-breathing, monster (think Smaug in The Hobbit, or better yet, think of the dragon that inspired him – the dragon from Beowulf) the Asian dragon is an auspicious symbol of prosperity, associated with bodies of water, as well as rain and storms. And of course, this is the Year Of The Dragon as well.

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The background of the dial was formed using a technique known as damascening, in which a metal of one color is inlaid into a base of a different color, in order to produce decorative patterns. Damascening is known in Japan as zougan, and is one of the techniques used to produce decorative patterns on tsubas. For the Dragon’s Cloud watch, yellow and rose gold wire were worked into the dial plate, and then shaped and finished with an engraver’s burin.

The body of the dragon is decorated with another rare type of enameling – paillonné. Paillonné enameling involves the setting of tiny spangles made of gold leaf, called paillons, onto the surface of the enamel before firing. Finally, a coating of fondant, or transparent enamel, is applied. The technique is demanding on several fronts. First of all, it almost died out completely in the 20th century and it was only thanks to the stubborn persistence of enamelists like Anita Porchet that it is part of the vocabulary of modern enamel dial watches today.

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When Porchet began making paillonné enamel, no one had made paillons for over a hundred years (she scoured Europe for paillons to add to her collection) and they  are extremely fussy to make and work with. Paillons are punched out of gold leaf, so first you have to make a punch, and once you’ve made the paillon, it’s so feather light it can only be manipulated with the end of an artist’s fine paint brush.

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The collecting habits of Gaston-Louis Vuitton may seem eccentric to many of us but one man’s eccentricity is another man’s hyper-focused lifelong dedicated refinement of taste. The collections of Gaston-Louis Vuitton may be unusual in their depth and breadth but they were the result of a keen eye wedded to a deep love of beauty in craftsmanship in all its forms, and the Cabinet Of Wonders watches are exactly what the name says – collections of some of the most important decorative techniques in the entire history of watchmaking.

Dragon’s Cloud, 18k rose gold case; dial, damascening decoration by Fanyy Queloz; champlevé and paillonné enameling by La Fabrique des Arts; GVL monogram in gold and carnelian.

Snake’s Jungle, 18k white gold case; dial in wood, straw, and parchment marquetry by Rose Saneuil; snake and leaves in white gold engraved by Eddy Jaquet and enameled by Vaness Lecci; GVL monogram in gold and nephrite jade.

Koi’s Garden, 18k white gold case; dial, white gold base, hand engraved by La Fabrique des Arts; carp, hand engraving and miniature painting by La FAbrique des Arts; pebbles in mother of pearl, rock crystal, smoky quartz, and diamond; GVL monogram in gold and onyx.

All three watches, 40mm x 12.04mm, water resistance 50M; all movements, caliber LFT023, microrotor automatic with 22k rose gold microrotor, engraved with Japanese waves motif. Each watch is a limited edition of 20 pieces worldwide. Price at launch, $269,000. To find out more about watchmaking at Louis Vuitton, visit LouisVuitton.com.