Louis Erard Introduces the Gravée Main, with a Fully Engraved Case
Of all the artisanal specialities in watchmaking, case engraving has to be among the most obscure and unheralded. I think there are a few reasons for this. One, the dial is where the action is on most watches, and applying a time consuming artistic craft on the case might be seen by some watchmakers as a waste of valuable time. Another factor is that to a large extent, we’ve all been trained to appreciate a particular type of case finishing. We see crisp transitions between brushed and polished surfaces, and that registers as being of a certain level of quality that we expect in a luxury watch. If those elements aren’t there, even if they’re substituted by something that might be visually striking, our reptile brains feel like there’s something missing. The latest in Louis Erard’s ongoing Métiers d’Art series, however, is a good opportunity to appreciate complex case engraving in a new way.
The whole idea behind how Louis Erard approaches Métiers d’Art, and to a certain extent the brand’s focus more generally, is to make craft accessible. The new Gravée Main is perhaps their most ambitious attempt in this area to date. Virtually every steel surface (the case, bezel, lugs, crown, and buckle) is hand engraved. According to the brand, each watch takes upwards of 50 hours to engrave by hand, and only 99 will be made.
Engraving is one of those things that really comes alive when you look at it closely and imagine that painstaking work that went into creating all of the tiniest details in the design. The Gravée Main features traditional baroque floral motifs throughout, and you can clearly see in the images provided that the small floral elements have subtle depth and shading that give them an organic, realistic feel. I haven’t seen the Gravée Main in person yet, but assuming the engraving is executed to the level promised by the brand, examining it closely should also reveal the inevitable signs of handwork, namely little imperfections, tool marks, and so forth that give pieces like this a lot of charm. According to Louis Erard, traditional engraving methods were used on the Gravée Main, including burins of different depths, drypoints, and hand shading techniques.
While the case of the Gravée Main is certainly the calling card of the watch, the dial has not been ignored. It’s a polished black lacquer that should offer a nice contrast with the busy nature of the case, and features rhodium finished, pear shaped hands and subtle, anthracite Roman numerals, The intent here seems to be not to distract from the case work while also complementing it in a sensible way.
The case measures 42mm in diameter and 49.9mm from lug to lug. This is Louis Erard’s larger sized case, but I think it makes a lot of sense to use the larger size as an appropriate canvas for the engraving here. This is a statement piece, through and through. It runs on a Sellita SW262-1 caliber with 38 hours of power reserve.
We expect to get a hands-on look at the Gravée Main in a few weeks at Geneva Watch Days, and will be sure to follow up with our impressions of what is easily one of the brand’s biggest swings to date.
The retail price of the Louis Erard Gravée Main is CHF 5,450. Louis Erard
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