Swiss watch brand Louis Erard continues to reinvent traditional métiers d’art with this second hand guilloché dial.
This is the second time Louis Erard has reinterpreted the art of guilloché (the first Excellence Guilloché Main was released in 2021). An art where the craftsman’s hand meets the mechanism: a manual lathe with cams determines the designs, while the hand guides the chisel — a mark of exceptional watchmaking whose origins date back to the 16th century.
Guilloché is the art of decoration and repetitive patterns. Traditionally, guilloché is based on a repertoire of patterns: there are nearly 80, and these patterns constitute the scale on which everything else is composed.
But Louis Erard changed the rules under the artistic and strategic impulse of Manuel Emch. He wanted this second opus of Excellence Guilloché Main to be a 100% original creation, starting from the design, and utilising all the resources of artisan dial-maker Fehr in La Chaux-de-Fonds to enhance and modernise traditional guilloché.
Everything about this piece is innovative. The operating range (the sequence of operations necessary for production) had to be assembled from scratch, from the first black varnishing to the final rhodium plating after the guilloché.
The guilloché itself required all the dexterity of the guillocheuse: the same artisan who made the 2021 dial, she produces the 99 dials piece by piece, each one taking several hours of work on the manual guilloché rose engine lathe. Not to mention the engineers, who had to invent and manufacture new cams (large metal stencils that the lathe translates into a design and scales down to the scale of the dial) to achieve this unprecedented result.
Equipped with the Sellita SW261-1 automatic movement, this new stainless steel wristwatch is a limited series of 99 pieces.
Technical details
Model: Louis Erard Excellence Guilloché Main II
Reference 34237AA95
Movement
Automatic, Sellita SW261-1 calibre, 2 hands, 11½’’’, Ø25.60 mm, height: 5.60 mm, 31 jewels, 28,800 VpH (4Hz), élaboré grade movement, meticulously decorated, special open-worked oscillating weight with black lacquered Louis Erard symbol, approx. 38 hours of power reserve
Functions
Hour and minutes
Central hour and minute hands
Case
Polished stainless steel, Ø42 mm, lug width: 22 mm, lug to lug: 49.60 mm, thickness: 12.25 mm, 3 pieces, domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment on both sides, movement visible through the transparent caseback, water resistant up to a pressure of 5 bars (50 m/165 ft), signature fir tree crown, caseback engraved with “Limited Edition 1 of 99”
Dial
Matt black varnish, interlocking square pattern made by hand guilloché in the traditional way by Fehr & Cie SA (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland), rhodium-plated, hour circle and “Swiss Guilloché Main” transferred in powdered silver
Hands Signature fir tree hands in blued steel
Strap
Black grained calf leather with tone-on-tone stitching, blue grained calf leather lining, polished stainless steel pin buckle, functional catch spring bars enabling the strap to be changed quickly
Dimensions: 22/20mm width, 80/115mm length
Recommended retail price
CHF 3,900
Edition
Limited edition of 99 pieces
