Perpetual Moon "Year Of The Rabbit"

A Lunar Rabbit
The year of the Water Rabbit has inspired a new artistic version of the Perpetual Moon. Arnold & Son has sculpted the animal in a calm yet watchful pose. It sits majestically against a backdrop of black aventurine, beneath a great mother-of-pearl moon. In Chinese Zodiac iconography, the water rabbit is the moon’s loyal companion. The sophistication of this dial, showcasing the artistic crafts, demonstrates Arnold & Son’s expertise. In addition to its fine watchmaking movement complete with large astronomic moon, the timepiece also displays masterful aesthetics. The Perpetual Moon “Year of the Rabbit” timepiece is at once powerfully symbolic, sophisticated and full of meaning.

Arnold & Son continues its celebration of the traditional Chinese calendar. To mark the dawn of the year of the Water Rabbit, the brand is releasing a new series limited to eight timepieces of its high-precision moon-phase model. The Perpetual Moon “Year of the Rabbit”timepiece features a sculpted golden rabbit set against a backdrop of black aventurine, posing next to a pagoda surrounded by waterfalls.

The year of the Water Rabbit begins on Saturday, 21 January 2023. In the founding legends of the Chinese Zodiac, the rabbit inhabits a white jade moon, to whom it serves as a pet. It embodies prudence and agility. When shown alongside the characteristic element of the year of the Water Rabbit, this animal promises longevity, peace and prosperity. 

Celestial light

On the canvas offered by the dial of this exceptional timepiece, Arnold & Son has accommodated a large moon. In a large aperture, a turning disc reveals the waxing and waning of the night’s celestial body, the appearance of the crescent moon and its light. It is crafted from mother-of-pearl with painted elements in relief, all enhanced with Super-LumiNova. 

Pale during the day, it shines brightly at night and is transformed, its face adorned with scintillating details. To add to the scene, the dial’s aquatic elements as well as the pagoda’s windows are also hand-painted with luminescent material. In the background, the disc bearing the star is made from deep black aventurine glass.

Artistic expression

The rabbit remains the dial’s key element. Sculpted in three dimensions, it is crafted from 18-carat rose gold. Its expression, its pose and the details of its fur are hand-engraved and -burnished to add depth and nuance. This painstaking work is worthy of the exceptional attention Arnold & Son has always paid to its limited series created in tribute to the Chinese Zodiac.

The same holds true for the dial. On a disc of black aventurine glass dotted with glittering inclusions, the foliage and pagoda decorations are hand-painted with gold powder. To complete this narrative tableau, the Perpetual Moon “Year of the Rabbit” model is mounted on a glistening black alligator leather strap with visible platinum stitching. It is lined with red alligator leather in a nod to the lucky colour of Chinese symbolism. 

Expert watchmaking

Like all the movements used by Arnold & Son, the A&S1512 calibre was entirely developed, produced, decorated, assembled, adjusted and cased up at the brand’s Manufacture located in La Chaux-de-Fonds. This calibre is powered by a double barrel with an oscillation frequency of 3 Hz, delivering a 90-hour power reserve.

Last but not least, thanks to the Manufacture’s R&D efforts, the moon phase display of this movement is so precise that it will remain accurate for 122 years before deviating from the actual lunar cycle by one day. The Perpetual Moon “Year of the Rabbit” timepiece therefore works in perfect harmony with the astronomic, astrological and collection cycles. This sense of eternity is characteristic of all Arnold & Son creations.

Technical specifications

Functions                     

• hours, minutes, astronomical moon phases, second moon-phase indicator on the back 

Movement

• Calibre: A&S1512, mechanical with manual winding
  
• Jewels: 27
  
• Diameter: 34 mm
  
• Thickness: 5.35 mm
  
• Power reserve: 90 hours
  
• Frequency: 3 Hz/21,600 vph
  
• Finishes                         
  main plate: rhodium-plated, radiating Côtes de Genève stripes
  bridges: polished and chamfered
  wheels: circular satin-finished
  screws: blued and chamfered, polished heads
  second moon-phase indicator: rhodium-plated and circular-grained                                                        

Dial                               

• material: black aventurine glass
  
• rabbit: 18-carat rose gold (4N), hand-engraved and -burnished finishes
  
• landscape: hand-painted with gold powder, enhanced with Super-LumiNova
  
• sky: black aventurine glass
  
• constellations: hand-painted, enhanced with Super-LumiNova
  
• moon: mother-of-pearl disc with hand-painted details, enhanced with Super-LumiNova

Case

• Material: 18-carat red gold (5N)
  
• Diameter: 41.5 mm
  
• Thickness: 11.67 mm
  
• Crystal: domed sapphire with an anti-reflective coating on both sides
  
• Case back: sapphire with an anti-reflective coating
  
• Water resistance: 30 m / 3 ATM

Strap

• Materials: glistening black alligator leather, red alligator leather lining, platinum thread (PT950), hand-stitched
  
• Buckle: pin buckle, 18-carat red gold (5N)

Reference                    

• 1GLBR.Z06A.C161A

Limited edition             

• 8 timepieces        

Astronomy, Chronometry and World Time

Arnold & Son's three founding principles

Throughout human history, measuring time has always referred to the stars. It was by observing certain stars and understanding their cycle that the first calendars were established with impressive accuracy. It took several millennia before this precision was enclosed in a timepiece like the ones designed by John Arnold. 

The golden age of maritime explorations and discoveries ushered this precision into a new technical ideal – determining longitude at sea. Its immediate corollary was the identification of local time, which changed constantly as the observer moved along an east-west axis. Astronomy, chronometry and what we now call world time are thus inextricably linked within one and the same question, to which John Arnold and his son devoted their lives, their art and their genius. 

This is how these three dimensions – astronomy, chronometry and world time – have come to be embodied in the House's contemporary timepieces.  Echoes of John Arnold's inventions and preoccupations, these pillars represent the foundations on which the Arnold & Son collections are based.

Chronometry: Be accurate

Rate accuracy, which is known as chronometry, is the key requirement of Arnold & Son's contemporary watchmaking. It is the standard of excellence for its collections, the first condition to be met and constantly checked, whether it is at the forefront or in the background of a watch designed by Arnold & Son. It is the most discreet of a movement's characteristics. 

When building an Arnold & Son collection, all the thinking is focused on this chronometry. The manufacture calibres are based on advanced technical fundamentals that are not necessarily the best known. One of them is the choice of small, lightweight balances capable of rapidly returning to their isochronous rate after the latter has been disturbed by inevitable everyday shocks. Another is the routine use of large barrels or even two series-coupled barrels to store the energy required for the movement to function.  They consequently provide Arnold & Son's manual winding calibres with above-average power reserves of 90 hours and more. A third is the particular attention paid to manufacturing the gear trains, roller-burnishing the pinions and polishing the gear teeth, as well as the precision of the machining and therefore the relative positions of the moving parts, a key concept in rate accuracy.

The tourbillon (or the fact of putting the regulating organ in rotation on its axis to best adjust the effects of gravity on the balance and its hairspring) was patented after John Arnold's death, but it was undoubtedly at the heart of his chronometric research and discussions with his friend Abraham-Louis Breguet, who incidentally assembled his first tourbillon on a John Arnold pocket watch in homage to this great watchmaker. Nowadays, the tourbillon has become a must in Arnold & Son collections.

While the tourbillon was not a complication in John Arnold's time, constant force underpinned the design of his marine chronometers. The regularity of the rate of the sprung balance relies on the consistency of the energy that it receives. However, this naturally fluctuates due to the circular and spiral nature of the mainspring contained in the barrel. To achieve a perfectly smooth torque, in other words a constant force, Arnold & Son uses a one-second constant-force mechanism. Housed just before the escapement, it stores up a small but always equal amount of energy in a secondary spring, the remontoire. Thus, every second, the sprung balance receives very precisely the same force to power its oscillations. These become more even, thereby creating the conditions for a high-precision rate.

Arnold & Son also works with another of John Arnold's historical chronometry indicators: deadbeat seconds, a mechanism that was indispensable to navigators at the time for calculating longitude. This mechanism advances one step each second, rather than six or eight smaller jumps in sync with the frequency of the balance. Instead of the term deadbeat seconds, Arnold & Son prefers a name whose very sound means accuracy: “true beat second”. Its jump is a signature of John Arnold's marine chronometers and a complication that is still alive and well in the House's collections.

Astronomy: Under the sky

The Pole Star, Southern Cross, astrolabes and sextant: measuring time has relied on the recurrence of astronomical phenomena in order to find long, reliable points of reference there that can be used under any conditions. The fruit of the human ingenuity, patience and dedication of countless observers and astronomers from every culture, these markers of cyclical time are foundational for Arnold & Son watchmaking.

Astronomical complications are a signature of Arnold & Son collections, with the moon as the heavenly body of choice, main subject and major inspiration. The distinctive feature of the Brand's moon phase timepieces is that they feature “astronomical” display precision as a matter of course. This term corresponds to an accumulated one-day deviation in the moon phase display every 122 years. Since setting this complication requires great finesse, the Arnold & Son moons generally have a double display with a secondary indicator on the case back next to the movement. This extremely rare display bears witness to Arnold & Son's involvement in all types of development and reflects its favoured themes, which are as much chronometric as astronomical.

Over and above their precision, Arnold & Son's moon phases attract all the light, either with a large moon opening up over half the dial, or with a 12-mm three-dimensional rotating moon, making it the largest of all moons. Whether in two or three dimensions, the moon is always treated as a small work of artistic craftsmanship, composed of materials that are rare in watchmaking such as marble or Paraíba tourmaline, or delicate such as mother-of-pearl, meteorite or aventurine glass. The Arnold & Son moon also shines at night, often with a subtle addition of luminescent material. 

World Time: Here, elsewhere, everywhere

With ocean navigation, humankind divided up the world and invented longitudes, which were calculated by comparing the local time, observed using the sun, and the time at a starting point, kept by an extremely reliable timepiece. John Arnold was one of the leading suppliers of chronometers to the British Navy. He was the one who successfully improved the reliability and simplified the production of these indispensable marine chronometers, so much so that he became a benchmark among great explorers such as James Cook and later Dr David Livingstone. The indication of several time zones is therefore integral to Arnold & Son's watchmaking identity.

As this navigation was itself inseparable from cartography, for this world time complication Arnold & Son has chosen to depict a three-dimensional terrestrial hemisphere, making it possible to tell what time it is at any point.

In parallel to this graphic vision, Arnold & Son has developed a second approach to the time elsewhere in the world: with a double tourbillon featuring two distinct rotating regulating organs, making it possible to follow time zones offset by 15, 30 or 45 minutes compared to a full hour – a freedom in terms of setting that remains extremely rare. 

Once again, and because this double display is based on a profoundly chronometric complication, Arnold & Son’s fundamental principles are interwoven. One never advances alone; there are always two – if not three – together. This is how a pillar's strength is measured: it relies on the next one, creating the conditions for a solidity that stands the test of time.