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With the imminent arrival of the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, one of the most innovative tourbillon watches with a perpetual calendar comes on sale. This exceptional timepiece is the latest in an artistically hand-crafted watchmaking tradition that has been nurtured in Saxony for centuries. All the more this is a reason to let it hold converse with masterpieces of the past in the collection of the “Historic Green Vault” in Dresden.
The Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar was created for people who have far-reaching ideas and consequently will only rely on a calendar designed to take the long view. The complication incorporated in the Lange 1 meets this requirement effortlessly: not until the year 2100 will its perpetual calendar need to be corrected by one day, and the innovations in its construction set new benchmarks.
To optimise the integration of the calendar into the dial of the Lange 1, with its off-centre composition, the Lange development team placed the month display on a rotating outer ring, for the first time in a wristwatch. Furthermore, all the displays of the perpetual calendar advance in jumps, so that they are clearly legible at all times.
However, this watch is not just a symbol of Saxon inventive genius. The hand-finishing of its 624 components also attests to the Saxon watchmaker’s roots in the local tradition of artistic craftsmanship. Nowhere can this be more impressively experienced than in the “Historic Green Vault”, Augustus the Strong’s treasury in Dresden Castle. This unique collection, reopened in 2006, is presented in nine sumptuously fitted rooms and comprises over 3,000 unparalleled masterpieces of the jeweller’s and sculptor’s arts, displayed on hundreds of consoles against richly decorated walls, or free-standing on magnificent tables. The watchmaking masterpiece of the 21st century was displayed in an exciting dialogue with two of these historic treasures.
The astronomical table clock by Jeremias Pfaff, made in about 1690, can be regarded as a forerunner in spirit: it has no less than five dials, on which allegorical figures act as indicators of the time, and a complete calendar. Richly ornamented leaves and flowers in silver filigree set with gems mark this horizontal table clock as an object created for a princely collection. An even earlier example of the high quality of German silversmiths’ art is the lavishly crafted ebony cabinet with rich adornments in partly gilded silver, made by the virtuoso Boas Ulrich towards 1600.
With their artistic constructions and fine decoration, Lange’s watchmakers and finishers pay a daily tribute in their work to the masters of a bygone age. They know that there can be no future without a past, and that technical progress without the nurture of tradition would have no soul. Thus A. Lange & Söhne, as a partner of the Dresden municipal art collections, not only contributes to the conservation of the Historic Green Vault, but at the same time acknowledges the brand’s cultural origins in Saxony.
About A. Lange & Söhne
When Ferdinand A. Lange established his watch manufactory in 1845, he laid the cornerstone of Saxony’s precision watchmaking industry. His precious pocket watches remain highly coveted among collectors all over the world. In 1990, his great-grandson Walter Lange seized the opportunity to start anew. Today, Lange crafts only a few thousand wristwatches in gold or platinum per year. They are endowed exclusively with proprietary movements that are lavishly decorated and assembled by hand. In a period of little more than 20 years, A. Lange & Söhne developed over 40 manufacture calibres and secured a top-tier position among the world’s finest watch brands. Its greatest successes include innovative time-keeping instruments such as the LANGE 1 with the first outsize date in a series produced wristwatch as well as the LANGE ZEITWERK with its supremely legible, precisely jumping numerals. Meanwhile, both models have become icons of the brand rich in tradition.
