Gravure main
Le Ciselage and Le Gravage (“carving” and engraving”) are both art forms themselves. They consist of hand carving designs or engraving script, in the micro dimensions of a watch. Using different forms of awls and viewing the component through a microscope, the carver’s or engraver’s work is painstaking and exacting. The carving of designs, of course, is limited only by the imagination of the engraver. But in both cases unlike, for example, a painter, there is no possibility of painting over an error or expressing a change of heart with pentimenti.
Every gesture applied to the metal must be perfect the first time. If an error is made, the component is discarded. It is not an exaggeration to say that Breguet’s carvers and engravers are artists working on metallic canvas.
Ciselage carving is reserved for Breguet’s rarest timepieces. This decoration can be seen on the back of the main plate of many Tourbillons, on the bridges and winding rotors of certain complicated watches such as the minute repeater and the perpetual calendar, and selected other watches. Gravage engraving is widely found on many movements with the name “Breguet” engraved, by hand, onto the plate of the movement.
