The latest edition of the Arnold & Son Catalogue is lavishly
illustrated and comes with new chapters and an entirely overhauled
design. Its content ranges from the legends behind the brand to a
full presentation and description of each model and their
movements, all manufactured in-house. In this year's catalogue,
Arnold & Son is proud to present five new manufacture
movements. Copies of the catalogue are available from authorized
Arnold & Son retailers and distributors or can be downloaded
from our website at www.arnoldandson.com
In 2014, Arnold & Son celebrated its 25oth anniversary. To
commemorate the occasion, the company has launched five new
in-house movements and various special editions that pay tribute to
the achievements of John Arnold and his son. The father-and-son duo
played a major role in the direction taken by English watchmaking.
They combined a finely developed aesthetic sense with the ability
to solve complex technological problems, and created some superb
movements and designs with cutting-edge mechanical features that
garnered several patents. Referring to the latest publication,
Philippe Boven, Executive Vice President of Arnold & Son, has
this to say: "We are tremendously proud of the new Arnold & Son
catalogue. It's a good fifty pages longer than the previous edition
and contains a wealth of fascinating detail about fine-quality
haute horlogerie and the superb features and functions that typify
our timepieces." The history section of the catalogue also details
John Arnold's life and describes the regard in which he was held by
King George III, and his fellow watchmakers, including A.-L.
Breguet himself.
Moving on from past to present, the catalogue presents a brief
overview of the brand's development and production facilities in La
Chaux-de-Fonds. It also explains how Arnold & Son belongs to a
select group of watchmaking companies in Switzerland entitled to
call themselves a manufacture - the French term for a watch
manufacturing company that designs, develops and produces its
movements in its own workshops. An impressive collection of Arnold
& Son calibres, with a complete range of sophisticated
complications, reflects the brand's prowess in this field. Unlike
other watch manufacturers, which often use the same calibre for
different models, Arnold & Son develops a new movement for
every single model. Every Arnold & Son movement thus has its
own story to tell and reflects the brand's heritage.
Before moving on to consider the brand's two collections, the
catalogue features a section entitledMétiers d'Art. This chapter
looks at Arnold & Son's mastery of the art of embellishing
dials and movements with hand-engravings and miniature paintings.
One of the latest examples of this exquisite art form is the HMS
Beagle Set of three watches, each depicting a different view of
Charles Darwin's survey ship in meticulous detail. Subsequently,
the catalogue details the Royal Collection, a reflection of
elegance and sophistication in the inimitable English style. It was
inspired by and pays tribute to the timepieces produced in the
earlier part of Arnold's life and made by John Arnold for King
George III and members of the royal court. The Royal Collection
demonstrates the brand's mastery of sophisticated complications
such as the tourbillon chronograph, equation of time and true solar
time, and the big date, month and multiple time zones. Two
spectacular new additions to the Royal Collection are the TES
Tourbillon and the TEC1, both housed like the other members of the
Collection in exquisitely elegant cases. The two timepieces are
considered in more detail later in the catalogue.
The timepieces produced during the second part of John Arnold's
career and, after his death, by his son, John Roger were the
inspiration for the Instrument Collection. Designed as chronometers
to deliver absolute precision, they were the work of watchmakers
dedicated to solving the problem of determining longitude
accurately at sea. So successful were they that Arnold & Son
became principal suppliers of marine chronometers to the British
Royal Navy. Distinctly purist in design, the Instrument Collection
combines marine precision with aesthetic perfection and draws on
several of John Roger's timepieces, where the design permits the
main complication to take centre stage. Three new additions to the
Instrument Collection - the DSTB true beat seconds, the DTE double
tourbillon and the CTB true beat chronograph - uphold this great
tradition. Like the Royal Collection, they are a sublime expression
of a long and proud heritage.