Romain Gauthier’s ambitious design for this Insight Micro-Rotor unique piece sees the craft of diamond setting elevated to the level of true art.
The diamond setter’s not insignificant task is to blend together 849 brilliant-cut diamonds of 17 different sizes totalling 4.78 carats on the platinum micro-rotor and red gold case, bezel, lugs and buckle, in a unique and eye-catching arrangement.
Harmonious arrangement
Based entirely on their artistic instincts, the setter plots out a harmonious arrangement of diamonds, with as little metal as possible visible between the stones. The setter uses a burr to make a honeycomb pattern of hollows where the diamonds will go, then a graver to create grains to hold each stone in position.
Skilful blend
Part of the challenge for the setter is to seamlessly blend diamonds of varying diameters next to each other to produce a sparkling snow-like effect. For this unique piece, there are17 different sizes of stone, the largest of which is 2.1mm in diameter.
Beautiful buckle
The buckle requires particular skill to create, with the diamonds needing to surround and suffuse the curvaceous lines of the Romain Gauthier logo that is hand-engraved in the red gold.
Dazzling micro-rotor
The removal of material from the micro-rotor to accommodate the dazzling diamonds means that the micro-rotor is made in platinum, rather than 22k gold, in order to maintain the necessary weight. Next to the micro-rotor, the hour-minute subdial and small seconds are delicately crafted from Tahitian mother-of-pearl.
Insight Micro-Rotor
snow-set unique piece
Ref. MON99988
- Micro-rotor, case, bezel, lugs and buckle snow set with 849 round VVS to VS diamonds of varying sizes totalling 4.78 carats
- Hours, minutes, small seconds
- 39.5mm case in 18k red gold
- Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial
- In-house automatic movement
- Snow-set platinum micro-rotor
- 80-hour power reserve
