Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Parmigiani Fleurier Les Roses Carrées “Collection Grand Feu” Rosa Celeste
Celebrating Michel Parmigiani’s birthday with the first of five unique minute repeater wristwatches.
Parmigiani Fleurier was founded by restorer and master watchmaker Michel Parmigiani in 1996 and feted its 25th anniversary in 2021 with two symbolic releases. Marking the way forward under newly appointed CEO Guido Terreni, the big news from Parmigiani Fleurier in 2021 was the release of a hyper-sophisticated luxury sports watch collection known as the Tonda PF. The other news, which was not as touted but packed with symbolism and horological credentials, was the release of La Rose Carrée. Designed to honour Michel Parmigiani’s dedication to restoration, this exquisitely decorated pocket watch was based on a restored Louis-Elisée Piguet calibre with grand sonnerie. And since birthdays are always perfect excuses to introduce novelties, Michel Parmigiani’s 72nd birthday (2 December) is celebrated with the launch of Les Roses Carrées “Collection Grand Feu”, a series of five unique minute repeaters in wristwatch format. The first model in the series is La Rosa Celeste, a 42mm white gold minute repeater with Grand Feu enamel, hand-engraved surfaces and a skeletonised minute repeater calibre with cathedral gongs.
La Rosa Celeste
As a restorer of antique timepieces, Michel Parmigiani has rescued clocks, automata, and watches representing over 500 years of watchmaking history from extinction. With a Proustian reverence for the past, Michel Parmigiani’s restoration experience has instilled in him a profound admiration for the art of traditional watchmaking and has been the cornerstone of his watchmaking adventure. The movement inside the unique La Rose Carrée (Louis-Elisée Piguet no. 5802) was acquired by Michel Parmigiani in the late 1990s and tucked away in a drawer for future restoration.
The magnificent one-off La Rose Carrée pocket watch has prompted the creation of Les Roses Carrées, a sub-collection of five unique handmade minute repeaters in a more wearable wristwatch format combining traits from the new Tonda PF collection.
The first model of this series is the Rosa Celeste, a 42mm white gold model decorated with hand-engraved rose motifs taken from the patterns adorning the original Rose Carrée (squared rose) pocket watch. Covering the bezel, lugs and casebands, the squared roses are manually engraved into the white gold with a chisel.
Like the pocket watch, Rosa Celeste has a hunter’s caseback decorated with a large square hand-engraved fractal rose pattern and covered with six layers of deep blue Grand Feu enamel. The solid white gold dial is also embellished with an identical shade of blue Grand Feu enamel but decorated with small carvings to produce a glistening chiselled surface.
Features like the gold skeletonised delta-shaped hands and the small applied gold indices are borrowed directly from the new Tonda PF collection, adding a dose of modernity.
Minute Repeater
The minute repeater complication inside Rosa Celeste is fitted with exceptionally long cathedral gongs to produce a deeper and richer chime. To enhance the acoustic quality and range of the chimes, the white gold caseback and case middle have resonance pockets.
Hidden beneath the hinged caseback is the in-house manual-winding calibre PF355 with minute repeater on cathedral gongs and a continuous chiming sequence. Similar to the skeletonisation of the PF 361 calibre inside the 2016 Chronor, the 72-hour movement reveals its elegant curved, bevelled and openworked bridges and refined hand finishings.
Availability & Price
The Parmigiani Fleurier Rosa Celeste comes with a blue hand-stitched alligator leather strap with a white gold pin buckle. It is a one-off edition and retails for CHF 600,000. For more information, please visit parmigiani.com.
