Collectors’ Guide to A. Lange & Söhne Handwerkskunst

A. Lange & Söhne had in the past created special references that featured hand adornment. “At that time, we did some very rare pieces for Asia,” de Haas says. “We worked with wholesalers then, and there was a retailer in Hong Kong who had a limited Lange 1 with a pink-gold dial, fully engraved. We also did Lange 1A and 1815 Chronograph, some with hand-engraved centre parts.”

While he was unsure whether there was room in the catalogue for standard series references that centred such lavish adornment, dismissing such skill and entrepreneurial spirit wasn’t an option either. After some thought, de Haas’s solution was to create a dedicated chapter for it – this was the birth of the Handwerkskunst programme. The first instalment of this story came exactly a decade after the passing of the architect of the modern brand, Günter Blümlein. It was a new beginning in more ways than one.

However, there was still the challenge of framing this line differently from every other watch A. Lange & Söhne has created, which all featured an element of handcraft. These watches, if they were to bear the Handwerkskunst name, had to be marked by a delta of intention. The handcraft wasn’t employed just to embellish fine mechanics, but in many ways centred it.

In September 2011, just a few months after the release of the base reference, the brand released the ultimate iteration of the watch – the Richard Lange Tourbillon Pour le Mérite Handwerkskunst. While mechanically analogous to the homologated series, it was unlike anything the brand had ventured before.

For starters, the 42mm case, standing 12.2mm tall, was crafted from the brand’s proprietary alloy honeygold. First seen the year prior, it is an alloy of pure gold, copper, zinc, and silicon. The combination gives the metal its signature pale-gold shade and hardness – it is denser and twice as hard as yellow gold and even tougher and more scratch-resistant than platinum. This quality, however, makes it harder to craft with, with tools involved in cutting, shaping, and polishing it wearing out at a faster rate. Consequently A. Lange & Söhne employs the alloy only in limited-series watches. The metal’s density and hardness are worth keeping in mind when considering the manual craft applied to the reference 761.050’s honeygold dial.

The dial featured six apertures that had been chiselled out, leaving the interconnecting network of raised edges for the Seyffert scale registers. The only exceptions are the aperture below 12 and above 6 o’clock that featured the oversized bas-relief brand name and place of origin marks – this was simply because the challenge of creating these characters in relief in the same scale as the standard watch proved far too great. Around these islands of lettering, the six sectors featured micro dimples, created by a sharp burin pressed down on the dial with even pressure thousands of times. This process called tremblage created the close, fabric-like texture, with the alternating dimpled and raised portions interacting with light differently to create a distinct shimmering effect.

The cream-coloured Seyffert scales – the large central minutes sector overlapped by the sector displaying the hours and the one-minute tourbillon aperture – framed the hand-crafted portions of the dial. The same material was employed for the Richard Lange Tourbillon Pour le Mérite’s mechanical novelty – the retreating hours scale between 8 and 10 o’clock that appeared precisely at 6 o’clock and retreated just as promptly at 12 o’clock.

When the hour scale was retracted, the seconds register offered a view through the calibre. The tourbillon cage, as is to be expected of the brand, brought to mind the architecture of the one in the Jahrhundert tourbillon historic pocket watch from 1900. Its one-minute rotation was linked to the seconds hand. Beautifully finished and mechanically refined, pulling the crown out to set the time also stopped the tourbillon carriage.

This was just one of the refinements of the calibre L072.1. As with watches that wear the coveted Pour le Mérite name, it had a fusée and chain transmission – the mainspring barrel was connected to the fusée through a 15cm-long, 0.5mm-wide chain. As the mainspring wound down (lost torque), the chain interacted with the biggest diameter of the hyperboloid (cone-shaped) fusée, which made up for the lost torque. As a result, the power that was transmitted from the fusée to the escapement was linear throughout the 36 hours of reserve the mainspring offered.

Again, while architecturally identical to the standard edition of the L072.1, in the Handwerkskunst the finishing was a differentiator. Instead of Glashütte striping, the German silver main bridge with its skeletonised details was adorned with a fine circular graining. The biggest delta over the standard watch was the finishing on the fixed fourth wheel and tourbillon bridges. While on the standard watch it was decorated with perlage, with just the balance cock adorned with floral engraving, on the Handwerkskunst both bridges were entirely decorated with bas-relief engraving in a floral pattern. Their polished forms contrasted against the frosted appearance of the tremblage on the base. The finishing was so special you could be forgiven for overlooking the diamond end stone on the tourbillon.

A real distinction

There is a part of de Haas that is uncomfortable with the Handerwerkskunst name. “That’s the disadvantage of the name, because all our watches are handcrafted. For instance, there are no two Datograph movements that are exactly the same – it’s all done by hand,” he says. “However, I get that you need a label, so people understand the real difference that comes from inside: people experimenting, trying things.”

This is a distinction that is perhaps lost in the conversation about the programme. It allows an established brand such as A. Lange & Söhne, part of a large group, to create like a small independent – to experiment with aesthetics and finishing while building up in-house skills, some of which have trickled down to standard production watches. “And most of all, it allows us to genuinely surprise people with what we can do,” de Haas adds.

The next chapter of the Handwerkskunst story came the very next year. “We don’t work in straight lines,” says de Haas. “There’s no ‘god of watchmaking’ here either. Ideas come from all corners of the team and development is independent of launch dates. For instance, in 2010 we were already playing with enamel.”

While the team worked to add to its repertoire of crafts, the next instalment in the Handwerkskunst story was the Zeitwerk also adorned with tremblage. While on the surface this seemed somewhat underwhelming, there was more to differentiate the Handwerkskunst edition than initially met the eye.

The Zeitwerk – with its bold, digital display inspired by the clock Ferdinand Adolph Lange helped create for Semperoper in Dresden – was suitably historical and the minimal digital display provided a large canvas for embellishment without overwhelming the aesthetic or functionality.

The high polished platinum case was identical in proportions and finish to the standard production variant. A white-gold dial, coated in black rhodium, was employed to create a suitably monochrome appearance. The dial was painstakingly hand-hammered by the same method as the previous watch. Owing to the canvas for the craft being significantly bigger, each dial took about two weeks to finish, according to the brand. Examining it with a loupe reveals the micro nature of the handcraft. The brand and Glashütte mark were in bas-relief, surrounded by a sea of tremblage. The power-reserve scale was also similarly achieved. Remarkably, the inside of the power reserve arc, on either side of the black and red scales, was also hand-hammered.

The German silver movement, seen on the dial side as the time-display bridge, was also rhodium-coated, in keeping with the monochrome palette. The three time-display wheels were anthracite, with white Arabic numerals, and the anthracite seconds register featured the sector-style display printed in white.

Hand-engraved particulars

On the caseback rim, the familiar details – the brand mark, limited-edition series number, serial number and Glashütte mark – were hand-engraved. This was a departure not just from the standard variant of the watch but also from the Richard Lange Tourbillon Pour le Mérite Handwerkskunst that preceded it.

The movement was decorated differently. Instead of the Glashütte striping, the bridges wore a velvety frosted texture with all details – jewel count, serial number, place of origin and regulation in five positions – hand engraved. The bas-relief lettering, surrounded by hand-hammering, on the mainspring barrel around the twin wheels of the stop-work was also a departure from the standard variant. It is worth noting that the Geneva stop-work only appeared in the first iteration of the Zeitwerk calibre L043.1, and the version fitted to the Handwerkskunst watches (calibre L043.4).

Similar to the previous Handwerkskunst watch, the balance and escape bridges were relief engraved, surrounded by hand-hammering. The details created in relief were rounded and luscious, polished and prominent in the sea of texture that the hand-hammered bases provided.

The craft was paired with the refinement of the constant force system, marked by a black-polished, anchor-style bridge (another detail of the first generation of this calibre, and its derivative, the calibre L043.4). A pin wheel underneath the anchor bridge slowed down the transmission of power as the minute wound down, working with a V-shaped pallet lever, locking and unlocking power to the twin third wheels.

These two third wheels of the going train were connected by a hairspring that was re-tensioned every minute, functioning as a constant force device – in this arrangement it allowed for the full burst of torque from the mainspring, primed and stored in the constant force spring, to be released at the top of every minute to ensure the instantaneous switching of one, two or all three of the time-display disks.

Mechanical Handwerkskunst

While the standard iteration of the Zeitwerk featured the calibre L043.1, the Handwerkskunst was fitted with the calibre L043.4. One of the differences was the balance wheel which in the L043.4 featured regulating screws instead of adjustable weights like in the L043.1.

The other difference was a nod to history, and one that had been exclusive to this particular reference. The Glashütte pallet lever escapement, developed by Ferdinand Adolph Lange in the 19th century, could be viewed as a variation of the Swiss lever escapement. The principal difference was the form of the ruby pallets and how they were held in the lever. In the Glashütte variety, the pallets sat flush, contained almost entirely within the arms of the lever, except on the sides where they interacted with the escape wheel. When viewed from the top, this face of the pallet jewel revealed an almost imperceptible curvature, improving the efficiency at the point of locking and unlocking the escapement. To date, this is the only reference to employ the Glashütte escapement. While this wasn’t a detail exclusive to this reference, both the escape wheel and pallet lever were also crafted from solid gold.

Owing to the antiquated design of the Glashütte pallet lever, the brand had to re-learn the process of hand-crafting them on a lathe. The knowledge, according to the brand, lay with a sole nonagenarian artisan, who trained watchmakers at A. Lange & Söhne over several months to create the 30 examples for this series.

In the third year of the line, A. Lange & Söhne picked another recent reference for the Handwerkskunst treatment. Released just the year before, in 2012 – the same year as the Datograph Up/Down – the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar was the brand’s ultimate novelty at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie that year. The reference 720.025 featured the perpetual calendar complication that the brand had hitherto struggled to integrate into the strictly regimented balance of the Lange 1’s dial aesthetic. That the design managed to keep the triangular form that the large date made with the time display and subsidiary seconds, while incorporating the perpetual calendar and moonphase, was indeed a triumph.

Furthermore, the self-winding calibre L082.1 was crowned by a diamond-pivoted one-minute tourbillon that in classical fashion was only visible on the movement side. It was a show of technical prowess and one that the brand managed to pack into a sub-42mm, 12.7mm-tall case.

However, if the Zeitwerk provided a big, empty canvas for handcraft, the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar offered exactly the opposite. The latter’s wealth of complications and corresponding dial-side furniture made it perhaps an unlikely candidate for ornate hand decoration.

For the Handwerkskunst edition (reference 720.048), the brand picked a style of relief adornment that it had previously only employed on the bridges of movements and paired it with the tremblage that had appeared in every Handwerkskunst reference to that point. This was created on a solid white-gold dial, treated with rhodium. The gold alpha-style hands were similarly coated.

Barring the chapters – for the rotating month and day indicators, the hours and minute chapter and seconds chapter and day/night indicator – every available surface was treated with relief-style engraving in a baroque floral pattern. The shimmer of the raised floral patterns was accentuated further by the more muted appearance of the hand-hammered surroundings. This treatment extended to the central portion of the time display, as well as the partially covered seconds and moonphase register.

It goes without saying that each hand-engraved dial had variations depending on the hands that crafted them. However, while the very first example of the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar Handwerkskunst the brand had revealed at the Watches & Wonders fair in Hong Kong in 2013 showed more pronounced and larger relief engraving, later examples moved to a shallower style and with scaled-down floral patterns. This more delicate style gave the dial a lighter, airier appearance.

Another detail that is easy to overlook, despite its scale, is the double-window panoramic date. While usually achieved in a monochrome fashion, in this watch it was a vibrant blue, tying it together with the day/night indication and the moonphase display. The Arabic numerals were hand-painted, as were the numerals of the leap-year indicator at 6 o’clock. The watch came on a platinum deployant clasp, something of a rarity in this metal.

Unlike in the Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst, the movement in the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar Handwerkskunst was mechanically identical in its components and functions to the standard iteration. The calibre L082.1, which completely integrated its calendar complications, was paired with bridges that jettisoned Glashütte striping for a fine circular solarisation like on the Richard Lange Tourbillon Pour Le Mérite Handwerskunst. The bridges were adorned with laser engraving, rather than the hand-etching on the Zeitwerk. The bridge that anchored the tourbillon – as well as one of two intermediate going train wheels – was richly adorned in relief engraving (rather than the engraved etching on the standard variant), like on the dial.

Another intermediate wheel was also anchored by a similarly adorned bridge. This was perhaps the most prominence and embellishment that has been lavished on an intermediate wheel. Moreover, that these two humble wheels all but blocked the view of the finely finished tourbillon cage has always annoyed enthusiasts.

Another key difference was on the full-sized gold rotor with a platinum mass. The standard variant already wore relief engraving and extensive hand-hammering, so the brand had to do one better in the Handwerskunst edition. On these, the relief A. Lange & Söhne mark was surrounded by baroque floral relief engraving, giving it a much more classical appearance.

A return to a smaller series

By this point, the Handwerkskunst team had grown to five, including the craftswoman whose vision had resulted in it. “We started gently,” says de Haas. “The young lady [whose idea it was to place handcraft at the centre of these watches] is now part of my team — there are now three women and two men. The men prepare the material; the women do the engraving and enamelling.”

While the Zeitwerk Handwerskunst had been produced in a series twice the size of the Richard Lange Tourbillon Pour Le Mérite Handwerkskunst, the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar Handwerkskunst returned to the same, smaller series run. De Haas says, “If you make one prototype, that’s one thing. Making 20 or 30 [handcrafted watches] is completely different. After 10 pieces, the team often says, ‘We’re so happy it’s only 15 or 20 pieces.’”

For the first few years of the brand’s relaunch, enamel almost never appeared in any meaningful way in its offering. However, in 2000, as a way of marking the 10th year of its modern chapter, the brand created the Anniversary Langematik (reference 302.025) with a pure-white, two-part enamel dial, with its recognisable red 12 o’clock marker. It was significant because the inspiration came from a historic pocket watch.

Another special watch in which the brand employed enamel was also inspired by a historic piece. The Grand Complication (reference 912.032F) was the brand’s most complex reference to date. It was based on the historic Grande Complication No. 42500 created in 1902. Just six examples of the modern watch would be created.

De Haas convinced the board to invest in a few ovens and supporting infrastructure so the team could work safely on-site.

He added, “Enamel dials are a big adventure. Sourcing the right black enamel took us from Germany to France to Japan as well as the US. The trouble is, the biggest customer for enamel businesses today are makers of toilets, with some enamel created for jewellers. But enamel is not created for precision watch dials. As a result, most contain tiny black and white specks, which don’t matter on a toilet but are unacceptable on a dial. To find a business that would create these highly purified versions of enamel … in small quantities – we rarely need more than a kilo of enamel – was difficult.”

De Haas and his team were able to find a supplier in rural France, working out of a barn with six ovens, who agreed to adapt its processes to create this higher grade of enamel for the brand. He says, “We found a company that was willing to melt it – because it’s a kind of glass – in a way to get rid of these grey specks, that are in fact dirt. So they made enamel especially for us.”

There began a learning process. “In the earliest days, enamelling was done on copper plates,” de Haas says. “Today we use an alloy of white gold because we have found that it is the least reactive and best suited to our needs. We tried one with honeygold. That was a fun experiment because in the oven the honeygold expanded outwards and shattered the enamel glass.”

As historically enamel powder featured lead, its toxicity has kept it out of modern composition. The lack of lead makes enamel even less predictable; the temperature range in which it is stable is even narrower. “It was trial and error,” says de Haas. “In hindsight, we could have called it the 'Trial and Error watch’ instead of Handwerkskunst, but it’s not as evocative, is it?”

The date wheels were colour-matched while the gold hands were rhodium-treated. Like on the standard iteration, the tourbillon cock was black-polished, so in certain light conditions it disappeared into the black of the rest of the dial. In other light, it was brilliant and matched the hands and windows of the date register. The subsidiary register was crafted from solid silver and featured circular graining that made it stand out from the rest of the dial.

The other canvas for handcraft is, of course, the movement. While the standard iteration of the manually wound calibre was L961.1, later special-edition watches were fitted with calibres L961.2 and L961.3, which differed in their finishes, and one technical refinement – pulling out the crown in the latter two stops the tourbillon.

The balance of elements was a theme in the Handwerkskunst references – dials that featured extensive handcraft, perhaps in a style that was novel to the brand, were balanced with simpler adornment on the movement. This was also conversely true. The relief engraving and enamelling in the Lange 1 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst, paired with more traditional movement-side adornment, was a good example of this balance.

The 2008 Cabaret Tourbillon (reference 703.025), powered by the calibre L042.1, featured a stop-seconds mechanism, a world first that also made precise time-setting possible. We will return to this innovation when discussing the Handwerkskunst version, but it is relevant here because A. Lange & Söhne expanded upon it in 2014 by combining it with a zero-reset function in the calibre L102.1 in the 1815 Tourbillon (reference 730.032). The following year, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Adolph Lange, the brand created the ultimate iteration, the 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst.

It benefited from the same technical refinements that are worth considering before getting into the handcraft. The stop-seconds function was achieved by a simple V-shaped spring that gently intervened, blocking the balance from oscillating, thereby stopping the carriage. When the crown was pulled out, the spring came into view. The reason for the second arm and why this V-shaped spring is on a pivot was fairly simple to follow, too – if one of the arms failed to make contact with the balance, touching the carriage instead, the other sprung out, stopping the balance.

The same pull of the crown that stopped the balance also reset the tourbillon and the seconds hand that is linked to it. An arm with a clear pallet stone – visible in the northern half of the tourbillon aperture on the dial side – descended, pushing down the heart-shaped cam, resetting the seconds hand to the zero, or 12 o’clock, position.

While retaining the same refined engine and case, the 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst presented an entirely fresh iteration of the classic 1815 family appearance. The relief-style dial furniture of previous Handwerkskunst references returned, as did the tremblage decoration. Crafted from solid pink gold, the hours chapter, inner sector and brand marks were created in relief. As before, these elements were proportionally larger than in the standard variant of the 1815 Tourbillon, due to the challenge of chiselling them out of solid gold.

While the colour of pink gold expressed itself in these elements, the rest of the dial was coated in rhodium, giving it a darker appearance. These darker expanses were hand-hammered, with the pattern so even and closely packed, the dial appeared as if frosted. The pink-gold lancet-style hands were beautifully rounded and polished and offered maximum contrast against the blackened dial.

Not finished any differently in the Handwerkskunst iteration, the angular, sunken tourbillon bar bridge sat almost flush with the dial. The carriage for the one-minute tourbillon itself was finished no differently from the standard watch.

On the movement side, the appearance was markedly different. The three-quarter bridge was skeletonised to expose a solarised mainspring barrel. The three apertures here were finely finished, with six sharp inward angles. The three-quarter bridge itself was frosted, in a nod to the finishing found on pocket watches of old.

The edges of the bridge had been redesigned to accommodate four sharp inward angles. The bridge too was adorned with free-hand engraving detailing the brand mark, place of origin, serial number, jewel count (20) and positions the watch was adjusted to (five). This engraving was matched by the free-hand engraving on the rim of the exhibition caseback.

As we have discussed previously, the brand balanced the craft on the dial with that of the movement side. The more restrained the dial adornment, the greater the likelihood that the movement is free-hand engraved.

After a gap of a couple of years, the brand revealed a watch that combined the hand skills the team had accrued in the years prior. We have noted in previous sections that the Handwerkskunst watches tried to balance ornateness on the dial and movements sides so as to not overwhelm. This consideration seems to have been put aside for the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, which remains in many ways the ultimate expression of the Handwerkskunst programme.

On the face of it, a watch based on the already complicated 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar of 2013, featuring the brand’s eighth chronograph calibre – with split seconds, perpetual calendar, moonphase display and power reserve indicator – seemed ill-advised. We posit that the handcraft in fact brought clarity to the four-register layout.

While in the standard watch, the silvered dial – or the salmon one in the 10-year anniversary reference 421.056 – was only visually differentiated from the subsidiary registers by chapters and the double-stepped detail, the adornment in the Handwerkskunst is a rare instance of craft serving a function other than providing visual enjoyment.

While the brand is known for deciding on dial aesthetics and constructing calibres around it, in the case of the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar Handwerkskunst the creative process was led by a desire for a larger canvas for craft.

De Haas says, “The idea came from a prior experiment with a white-gold plate that the team relief engraved, with little stars and dots and a disk for the moon, coated in translucent enamel. The effect was incredible. So, what kind of watch should fit with stars and moons? A perpetual calendar, of course.” While the craft helped pick the reference, the final shape the watch took was the result of a desire to pack more into the watch.

“From the moon and stars motif the designer came up with the idea of the goddess Luna,” adds de Haas. “In sketches and discussions between the enamellist and designer, they couldn’t decide where Luna would go as there was no space on the dial. Someone suggested that we had done a hinged, half-hunter caseback [like on the anniversary reference 191.066] but we had never done one with enamel. How would the enamel react to the case being opened thousands of times over the years?”

These above considerations offer a view into the development process at a brand that is often viewed as tightly regimented and only very incrementally changing.

What resulted was a maximum iteration of the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar in every sense. While it still measured 41.9mm across, owing to the hinged caseback, the case stood 15.8mm tall, instead of the 14.7mm on the standard watch. The case itself, crafted from white gold, was identical to the standard watch, both in construction and finishing.

The dial was inspired by the layout of the Grande Complication No. 42500 pocket watch (and the wristwatch reference 912.032F inspired by it and also released in 2013 alongside the standard 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar). The outer silvered edge was printed with a chemin de fer style chronograph minutes track, much like in the standard watch. The only difference here was the 15-, 30- and 45-minute markers – printed in red in the regular watch – were in a light blue, in keeping with the shade employed in the rest of the dial.

The dial stepped down to the central portion, with all but one of the four registers featuring a double-stepped detail. In the Handwerkskunst, the central portion of the dial and registers were hemmed by white-gold rims to contain the pool of champlevé-style enamelling.

The dial was treated to the sort of relief engraving employed in the Handwerkskunst variants of the Lange 1 and Zeitwerk. In the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, the method was employed to create two-dimensional stars and dots to depict celestial bodies. In addition, the Arabic chapter of hours was also created in relief but stood a little higher than the celestial bodies. When the dial was filled with enamel, the stars and celestial bodies were submerged, appearing in the distance in the “night sky”, while the hour markers sat flush with the enamel surface. It highlighted the three-dimensionality of the dial adornment.

The shade of enamel in the central sector was repeated in some of the printing in the registers – such as the first of the month and to indicate the leap year – as well as the heat-blued hand that plied the register, noting 30 minutes of elapsed time when the chronograph is engaged. Like in the standard variant, the subsidiary registers featured circular engine-turning.

The central portion of the caseback, ringed in by a cleft, was the bas-relief incarnation of Luna clutching her veil in one hand while cradling a torch in the other. This relief work was done freehand out of solid gold – the negative spaces were chiselled down then hand-pressed using a burin or micro needle. Luna’s likeness was then carved out of the raised portion. The folds of her hair, robe and veil were especially realistic, as were the flames of her torch. As is to be expected of hand-engraving, Luna’s likeness on the examples we have examined showed difference in quality of finishing, with some examples better formed than others.

Luna’s crescent diadem and the flames from her torch overlapped the moat of relief engraving and translucent enamel that surrounded her. Here again, like on the dial side, a solid gold base was carved down to create the cloud-like pattern and stars, with this aspect filled in with enamel. It completed the motif of Luna’s legend as the goddess of the night, watching over her mortal lover as he slept.

The feast of finishing continued on to the manually wound calibre L101.1. As with the rest of the case, the brand went further in terms of movement finishing than it had done for any of the preceding Handwerkskunst references. While structurally identical to the standard version of the calibre, the bridges here were frosted instead of the regular striping.

The bridges anchoring the balance, rattrapante start/stop function, rattrapante centre wheel and rattrapante clamp were engraved in relief with the starry motif. The stars and celestial bodies of different scales stood out against a hand-hammered backdrop in what is perhaps the most complete execution of a finishing theme of any Handwerkskunst watch.

The finishing on the rest of the movement was to the same high standard as the standard watch. The column wheels, both chronograph and rattrapante, were black-polished, while the chronograph and rattrapante levers were vertically brushed. These differences in finish were well-considered and, seen as a whole, gave the movement even more of a sense of depth and jewel-like shimmer.

It responded with the reference 703.048F in 2021, four years after the last Handwerkskunst novelty. Since the Cabaret was always firmly rooted in the Art Deco universe, any subsequent reference had to issue from the same philosophy. The case remained faithful in its details and dimensions to the Cabaret Tourbillon – 39.2mm long (46.4mm from lug-to-lug), 29.5mm wide and 10.3mm tall.

At first glance, the solid white gold (silver on the standard watch) also appeared similar. However, here the outer portion of the dial had been hollowed out of material by hand, leaving behind just the Roman quarter of hours and the diamond hour makers. The tops of these markers were frosted while the hollowed-out base of the dial was treated to tremblage or hand-hammering. This was so that when this sector was covered in petroleum-coloured enamel, the glassy texture of the still had underlying texture.

This enamelling was done in the champlevé way, with the central portion of the dial, as well as the two registers and the aperture for the tourbillon, ringed off to accommodate the multiple layers of enamel. The frosted finishing on these rims also extended to the double-aperture date window, giving the watch face great cohesion.

It was the central portion that was most noticeably different from the standard watch and much closer to the Art Deco countenance of the other elements of the Cabaret.

Created in a diamond or lozenge pattern, the pattern was carved out. Each diamond was then carved out in a single, sure motion to create an inverted pyramid-shaped reservoir. The diagonal rows between the diamonds were carved out to create furrows. Once the geometric pattern was achieved – a first for the Handwerkskunst watches – the surface was gently brushed to remove the precious debris and also polish the raised portions of the pattern. This was then covered in a thin veneer of the same shade enamel. While this tied it in with the rest of the dial, it retained many of the details of the hand-engraving.

The subsidiary registers featured circular engine-turning and the lancet hands were crafted from gold. The tourbillon, anchored on the dial side by a dual-faceted bar bridge and anchored by a diamond, was finished to the same standard as the standard variant of the Cabaret Tourbillon.

On the movement side, the rectangular calibre L042.1 was dominated by the three-quarter plate. However, as was customary for Handwerskkunst watches, instead of the standard Glashütte striping, the plate was frosted. The wheels of the mainspring barrel and keyless works were beautifully finished – the edges in between the teeth were bevelled and mirror-polished, as were the edges of the click spring. This kind of finishing was reserved only for the Handwerkskunst variant of the Cabaret Tourbillon.

Ever since its release in 1999, the Datograph has been much heralded for mechanics as well as appearance. After all, its dial-first conception managed to pair the seldom-seen manually wound flyback chronograph neatly within the brand’s mathematically guided aesthetic universe. It found favour with casual enthusiasts and watchmakers alike. While the Datograph was replaced in 2012 by the Datograph Up/Down with an updated calibre, as with these things, there remains a steady following for the original.

For its 25th year, the brand answered this call. It released a trio of references – the Datograph Up/Down in white gold with a blue dial (reference 405.028), the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen (reference 740.055FE), and the Datograph Handwerkskunst. We are, of course, most interested in the third – not just for its handcraft, but for how closely it was modelled on a rather special first-generation Datograph.

The gold, stepped dial was rhodium-plated to create a darker shade, while the stepped subsidiary registers were silvered for contrast. All parts of the dial were covered in tremblage, with the pattern packed so tightly and evenly that individual dimples, created by a burin, blended into a shimmering whole. Each dimple was pressed in by hand, creating a subtle, even pattern. While in certain light the rhodium-coloured sections appeared frosted, the hand-hammering was much more evident in the lighter shade of the subsidiary registers.

Much of what was pad-printed on the regular series watch appeared in relief. This included the brand and line mark, country of origin, the tachymeter scale, and the chapters for the two subsidiary registers. These rose from the hand-hammered surface, lending the dial a degree of three-dimensionality that was absent in standard watch.

This exuberance was tempered by other dial elements. While on the standard variant the faceted applied indices were intended to dance with light, here the finish was designed to mute it. This was true of the Arabic chapters in the subsidiary registers. The indices, whether the batons or the Roman hours, had been flattened and vertically brushed on top.

This finish extended to the lancet-style hours and minutes hands as well, where in the standard variant they were filled with luminous material to aid readability. In the Handwerkskunst, the readability in the dark was sacrificed for the sake of balanced aesthetics. In fact, the tops of all hands were flattened and vertically brushed, including the central chronograph seconds indicator. Irrespective of their scale, all hands also featured bevelled, mirror-polished edges, manual finishing that was especially impressive on the ones plying the subsidiary registers.

This was in line with the simplified tachymeter scale, that in the Handwerkskunst guise did without the “Base 1000 meters” annotation to accommodate the larger numerals created in relief. The numerals on the scale were also less frequent, and this too can be forgiven for the same reason that an artisan had to chisel each one of these out of metal.

The other point of inflection on this reference was the finishing on the manually wound calibre L951.8. As de Haas noted earlier, even in the standard series, fitted first with L951.1 and then in the calibre L951.6 in the Up/Down version, every example was created and finished by hand and consequently featured minor variations. The calibre L951.8, specific to the Handwerkskunst variation, was finished in a wholly unique fashion while mechanically identical to the L951.6, save for the lack of the up/down power reserve complication.

While on the standard variant the bridges were decorated with Glashütte striping, on the L951.8 this was replaced by a frosted finish. This finish extended to the baseplate too.

The stainless-steel chronograph levers were extensively black-polished, as were other parts finished in the same metal, such as the escape cock and the swan-neck regulator. The wide edges of the bridges were bevelled and mirror polished.

Most eye-catching was the floral relief engraving, set against a hand-hammered backdrop, on the balance bridge. The hand-hammering created an effect that at first glance appeared not dissimilar to the frosting on the surrounding surfaces. It rewarded closer inspection though, revealing its even, microscopic indentations achieved by burin and a steady hand. The relief-style floral engraving brought to mind the sort of adornment found on fine, hand-engraved guns.

As we have discussed previously, owing to the balance of handcraft the brand sought, the dial was balanced with simple, laser engraving on the movement side.

The calibre L951.8 had all the refinement of the L951.6, including the brand’s proprietary balance wheel (with gold weights rather than timing screws) and hairspring with overcoil, also created in-house. The balance was also free-sprung, despite what the finely finished swan-neck regulator might suggest.

Parting thoughts

When speaking to us, de Haas was keen to point out that while to the outside world the Handwerkskunst programme is now 15 years old, it is the result of a much longer gestation. “Development is never a linear path,” he says. “It is often winding and a bumpy road. But every setback teaches you something. We reinvest heavily – we spend more on development than marketing. That’s why our product development team grew from about 10 people to nearly 60. Not to produce more, but to be independent and do everything in-house. It has taken a lot of time to get to where we are today.”

We spoke of the delta of intention at the very start, and how that separates these special references from the handcraft that goes into everything else A. Lange & Söhne produces. The trajectory of the eight references suggests to us that that intention has been renewed, time and time again, as the team’s skill and confidence have grown. That it sometimes manifests in interesting interpretations of traditional craft and historically minded technical details or the brand choosing to merge these with historically technical complexity makes its approach near-singular in modern fine horology.