Santos 100 moyen modèle décor colibri

In the great tradition of artistic crafts…
 
A pioneer for more than 160 years, Cartier has always placed the artistic crafts at the very heart of its creations. For the last decade, this rich heritage has been particularly honoured by the watchmaking marvels in the Cartier Art collection. These unique watches preserve, revive and reinvent rare areas of expertise that are sometimes forgotten.
 
This year, six new creations testify to a desire to go even further, beyond the limits of an era that has passed, to project the nobility of the artistic crafts into today's world. Reinterpreting and adapting these crafts around stones, enamel, engraving and wood has given birth to a new epoch.
 
Loyal to its inherent sense of creative craftsmanship, Cartier proposes a magical menagerie that showcases this unusual union of artisanal skills and watchmaking expertise. These artistic crafts enrich and complement each other, providing new realms of creativity.
 
Whether at the Cartier Manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds or in the extraordinary setting of private workshops, Cartier Art watches are brought to life in the hands of outstanding craftsmen. They are exceptional pieces imbued with a passion for craftsmanship, for limits surpassed and for challenges resolved; such perfection and beauty in workings so infinitely small are truly astounding.
 
Time no longer matters; the hands work on, producing intaglio engravings, gold cloisonné creations, stone mosaics, overlays of enamel, wood marquetry, and so on, like a poem reeled off by the tips of fingers.
 
Emotion is most certainly in the air.

Santos 100 watch, medium model, hummingbird motif in mother-of-pearl marquetry, champlevé grand feu enamel, set with pink sapphires

With a flutter of its wings, a dazzlingly colourful hummingbird has landed on the  Santos 100 watch. 

Champlevé enamel, a setting of precious stones and pink and blue mother-of-pearl marquetry combine to illustrate the flight of the smallest bird in the world. Cartier depicts the bird naturally, drinking a rare and precious nectar from the heart of a flower in pink sapphires…

This feminine creation, whose motif extends beyond the dial onto the bezel and case, is composed of ten pieces of mother-of-pearl, nine colours of enamel and twenty pink sapphires. In the magic of this chromatic harmony, the light plays its part with complete freedom.