In celebration of the ephemeral beauty of flowers and in order to preserve it for eternity, Cartier has taken up a new craft in watchmaking: floral marquetry, which adorns and enlivens the dial of the Ballon Bleu de Cartier 42 mm watch.

A watch at the crossroads of two kinds of craftsmanship: the one, never before seen in watchmaking, immortalises flowers and their vulnerable beauty; the other, that of the jeweller, enhances the dial’s precious nature. When the two combine, a kind of alchemy occurs, resulting in an explosion of colour: there is the blue and the orangey-yellow of the plumage, the deep black of the beak, the emerald green of the eye and the sparkling white diamonds in the background of the dial and on the crown. Never has a Ballon Bleu de Cartier watch contained such a palette of colours!

Floral marquetry has never before been applied in the field of haute horlogerie

Making the ephemeral eternal takes time. A multitude of minute operations follow one after the other: the flower petals are gathered and coloured, each petal is then stuck onto a thin piece of wood and cut into the desired shape using a marquetry saw.

Tinged with brilliant blues and yellows, the petals will soon form the portrait of a colourful macaw

Each flower has been carefully disassembled and laid out on a wood board to be cut into shapes which would eventually become the plummage of the macaw

Using a marquetry saw, the petals are cut with thoughtful precision and then finely shaped into individual ‘feathers’

Thus transformed, they become feathers and plumage, a precious, noble material that is vibrant, sensual and fragile, with a volume and texture that contrast with the shine of the onyx beak and emerald eye.

Each carefully crafted feather is then pieced one by one onto the gold dial

The grey and black feathers surrounding the eye are created one by one with miniature painting.

Several hours of marquetry and stone-setting work within the manufacture are required for the dial of this creation to come into being.

42mm case in 18k rhodium-plated white gold set with 124 round diamonds, fluted crown set with blue sapphire cabochon; dial in rhodium-plated 18k white gold and pink gold with floral marquetry set with onyx and emerald; paired with white semi-matte alligator leather and rhodium-plated 18k white gold double adjustable folding buckle (set with 43 diamonds)

Self-winding Cartier Calibre 049, limited edition of 20 pieces