The engraving artisan’s bench features a range of tools neatly lined up within easy reach : chisels, scribers, graining tools, round punches, gouges, flat, halfflat or round gravers. However, the engraver’s first tool is not the kind that immediately comes to mind, but instead one that we all use on a daily basis : a pencil ! Before shaping matter and bringing it to life through a raised area, a curve, an angle or a domed surface, the engraver’s work starts with a sketch. It is on the basis of an extremely accurate reproduction of the motif, the painting or the desired letters that the artisan then hollows out the metal, pushing it back and gently chiseling it using various techniques mastered in the Patek Philippe workshops.
The Patek Philippe engraving artisan lavished around 230 hours of work on adorning the gold caseback of the one-of-a-kind pocket wach named “The Galleon”. To reproduce in basrelief the drape of the sails, the finesse of the ropes, the movement of the swell, the windows and the cannons arranged in orderly fashion along on the majestic hull of the galleon or the flight of the birds, the craftsman has endeavored to hollow the material by tracing lines, curves, furrows of variable depths. He pushes back the gold with one hand and holds it back with the other, in a subtle balance that can only be properly judged and achieved through substantial experience. Little by little, the motif emerges from the background with infinite finesse, revealed in the minutest detail, including some that deserve to be examined under a magnifying glass. Volumes, perspectives, plays on light and material – whether soft, rough, shiny or matt – stand out from the case. Accentuated in certain places by oxidation with black rhodium, shadows appear and reliefs are defined. Therein lies the unique talent and deftness of the finest artisans : using brilliantly-mastered skills to give life to such detailed and complex motifs as this galleon sailing across the waves. A rare ornamental technique for an exclusive one-of-akind creation.
