Wheels Within Wheels: The Rotonde De Cartier Astrotourbillon, In White Gold

The Cartier Astrotourbillon was produced during a fairly unusual period in the history of Cartier – at least, in the history of modern Cartier, because if you look at the broader history of the “jeweler of kings, and king of jewelers” the Astrotourbillon doesn’t seem to be quite as much of an anomaly as you might think.

The Astrotourbillon is an unusual version of Breguet’s original invention and it is unlike any other modern tourbillon, or at least, I’m not aware of any other modern tourbillon that has used this particular configuration (which I would imagine is still patent protected, in any case). The tourbillon in this watch, has a carriage with its axis at the center of the movement, and on the dial side of the watch, on the same axis as the hour and minute hands. The balance, however, is not on the axis of the carriage. Instead, the balance, balance spring, lever, and escape wheel are arranged in a line along a platform extending out to the minutes track of the watch, which rotates once per minute and acts as the seconds hand.

The Astrotourbillon was one of a collection of watches which Cartier produced from 2008 to 2018 – the Fine Watchmaking Collection, which was introduced at the same time that Cartier ceased making watches under the CPCP (Collection Privée Cartier Paris) label. The Collection Privée Cartier Paris watches were produced from 1998 to 2008 and they were in general, modern versions of some of Cartier’s most famous designs from the period in its history – very roughly speaking, about 1910 to the mid-1930s – when Cartier introduced various versions of the Tank, the Baignoire, the Tortue, the Santos-Dumont, and others, and these were in general, time-only takes on the classics, although some very complicated watches would eventually join the collection as well (including a monopusher chronograph tourbillon in a Tortue case). Movements came from a variety of suppliers, including Technique Horlogère Appliquée (the movement construction and complications specialist founded by Vianney Halter, Denis Flageollet, and F. P. Journe; Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Renaud & Papi. During this period, Cartier began to become more and more interested in unusual complicated watchmaking, and to support some of its most ambitious projects, built a 30,000 square foot manufacturing center in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

The Fine Watchmaking Collection (FWC) finally launched its first watches in 2008, and to collectors who were fond of Cartier as a maker of watches in elegant, urbane and sophisticated shapes, they were absolutely a shock. They were larger than preceding Cartier watches, and the creation of unusual complications took some getting used to.

At 47mm x 14.8mm, the Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon is certainly not your (great) grand-father’s Cartier, but it is quite interesting in its own right, and reflects an aspect of Cartier which is less well known to collectors: the use of complicated horology to produce particular visual and artistic effects. This side of Cartier is perhaps best seen in its mystery clocks, in which the clock hands, suspended in panes of rock crystal, appear to rotate with no apparent mechanical connection to the rest of the watch. The mystery clocks were originally created, appropriately enough, by a stage magician named Jean-Eugéne Robert-Houdin and refined for Cartier by the clockmaker Maurice Coüet. Although they’re perhaps the best known example of Cartier going technical for art’s sake, there are certainly others – before World War II, Cartier produced some ingenious magnetic clocks, in the shape of basins of water, inhabited by aquatic creatures (fish, turtles) which would move around the circumference of the basin once every twelve hours – moved by magnets hidden under the floor of the basin.

There is a similar degree of prestidigitation behind the Astrotourbillon (which took five years to develop). The skeletonized version of the watch shows the arrangement of the gears driving the tourbillon:

The tourbillon carriage, as we’ve said, rotates on the same axis as the hands, and is driven by the movement third wheel. In doing so, it rotates around the fixed movement fourth wheel, whose outward facing teeth can be seen in the image above. As the carriage rotates, the pinion of the escape wheel works against the fixed fourth wheel teeth, causing the escape wheel to turn, thereby providing impulse to the lever escapement, and thence to the balance. The basic principle is more or less identical to Breguet’s original conception but the execution is uniquely Cartier’s.

As the tourbillon is on the dial side of the watch, the view of Cartier caliber 9451MC is relatively straightforward, although here Cartier has given the movement some of its own flourishes – the shapes of the bridges could be plausibly read as a sort of idealized Alpine winter landscape. The wheels visible from the back are those for the keyless works for winding and setting, and the ratchet wheel for the two mainspring barrels.

The Astrotourbillon would go on to be used in various cases, including the Calibre de Cartier case, and there was even a limited edition, based on the Cartier ID One concept watch: the Astrotourbillon Carbon Crystal, which borrowed from the ID One,  a titanium-niobium alloy case (which absorbs shock better than conventional case materials) and a synthetic diamond balance bridge, escape wheel, and lever.

You can’t (or you shouldn’t) talk about the Astrotourbillon in particular, and the Fine Watchmaking Collection in general, without talking about the genius who made it possible: Carole Forestier-Kasapi, winner as a fledgling watch designer of the Prix de la Fondation Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1997 for a design which would, just a few years later, become available to collectors as the Ulysse Nardin Freak, and who worked at that finishing school for complications masters, Renaud & Papi, whose alumni include Stephen Forsey and Robert Greubel, the Grönefeld brothers, Andreas Strehler, Carole Forestier-Kasapi herself, Peter Speake, Anthony de Haas, and others. For years, she was responsible for pretty much any interesting tourbillon the Richemont Group produced and she was essential to the speed of development, and sophistication in design, that put the Fine Watchmaking Collection on the map (she’s currently head of movement development at TAG Heuer).

The Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon was, like the entire Fine Watchmaking Collection, launched at a challenging time. Starting in the early 2000s, brands competed neck and neck to create examples of impressive maximalist watchmaking and the competition was fierce; this is the era that gave us defining designs and exotic complications from Greubel Forsey, De Bethune, Jaeger-LeCoultre (the Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque, for instance) and many others, but the exuberance of the period was tamed to a considerable degree by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, with the next phase – the celebration of vintage watches and the elevation of patina to the status of a critical validating element of perceived integrity, almost comically opposed to what had come before. But with the passage of time, the social, political, and economic contexts in which Cartier launched its Fine Watchmaking Collection have become less important, I think, in evaluating the watches, and the Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon can be seen for what it is: a brilliantly inventive variation on the theme of the tourbillon.

The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for Cartier timepieces. See the Rotonde de Cartier Astrotourbillon here; and contact us for pricing and availability.