Key takeaways
• Arnold & Son released the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Platinum “Horse of the Dunes,” a fine watchmaking piece limited to just eight editions.
• The watch features an 18-carat white gold hand-engraved horse, hand-painted luminescent dunes, and an aventurine glass dial with a mother-of-pearl moon-phase display.
• Powered by the manual-winding A&S1512 caliber, it accurately tracks the lunar cycle with a 90-hour power reserve and takes 122 years to deviate by one day.
A night-time scene set under the stars. In its 41.5 mm platinum case, the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Platinum “Horse of the Dunes” presents a horse sculpted in white gold. Under the astronomical moon-phase display, the animal seems free to roam the dunes. With this new interpretation of themes that are dear to Arnold & Son, “Horse of the Dunes” reveals all that artistic savoir-faire can offer the imagination. Produced in a limited edition of just eight pieces, this timepiece brings together fine watchmaking, hand engraving and miniature painting in a unique evocation of the horse and the desert.
The landscape represents no specific geography, leaving room for the imagination. Here, Arnold & Son pays tribute to Man’s most noble conquest in a setting where the sands melt away into the night sky. The Perpetual Moon 41.5 Platinum “Horse of the Dunes” depicts a horse roaming free atop a dune, bathed in the light of a great mother-of-pearl Moon.
A Nocturnal Tableau
The expressive power of the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Platinum “Horse of the Dunes” lies in the combination of Arnold & Son’s creativity and meticulous execution. The horse is a hand-engraved 18-carat white gold appliqué. The details that emerge are striking: from the hooves to the mane, the taut muscles and the play of shadow across its coat, the moon-colored horse dominates a desert landscape laid over an aventurine glass dial, as black as the night under a star-filled sky.
The dunes, hand-painted and enriched with luminescent material, create an arid, shifting relief, as though sculpted by the wind. A disc of black aventurine glass forms the sky, its metallic flecks evoking a myriad of stars. The moon-phase complication, meanwhile, takes the form of two mother-of-pearl discs following each other, iridescent in daylight and luminescent in the dark thanks to Super-LumiNova.
A Noble Pedigree
On the case back, a secondary moon-phase indicator lets you adjust the display quickly and precisely. The manual-winding A&S1512 caliber powering the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Platinum “Horse of the Dunes” tracks the complete lunar cycle of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.9 seconds with remarkable accuracy.
Arnold & Son reproduces this cycle with such precision that it would take 122 years to accumulate a one-day deviation from the actual astronomical cycle, provided the watch were kept fully wound. As with all Arnold & Son movements, the A&S1512 caliber is developed, manufactured, decorated, assembled, adjusted and cased up at the Chaux-de-Fonds manufacture. It features two barrels and a regulating organ oscillating at 3 Hz, providing a 90-hour power reserve.
