Leading Swiss manufacture Patek Philippe opened its largest-ever exhibition in Tokyo this weekend; to celebrate the latest event, the house also unveiled six limited edition watches and a collection of rare handcrafts.
Dubbed Watch Art Tokyo, it is the sixth recent large-scale international exhibition held by Patek Philippe, and will be open to the public in the Japanese capital until 25 June.
Across the huge 2,500 square metre space visitors are transported to the streets of Geneva, with the latest exhibit offering a look at the inner workings of the famous watch house.
Like previous visits to the city, the Patek Philippe event is hosted at Tokyo’s iconic Sumitomo Sankaku Hiroba building, located among the soaring towers of the city’s well-heeled Nishi-Shinjuku business district.
Rare and unique timepieces and objects
There are more than 500 timepieces and objects being exhibited at the unique one-off event. Highlights include the house’s entire current collection and rare handcrafts (including miniature painting on enamel, cloisonné enamel, hand engraving, micro wood marquetry, hand-executed guilloché work and gem-setting).
In a nod to the iconic setting in the Japanese capital, there are also 40 one-of-a-kind pieces and limited editions (dome clocks, table clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches) inspired by Japanese culture, which are included in the exhibition. These pieces explore the country’s rich artistic repertoire and ancestral skills, with live demonstrations by skilled local artisans.
The Patek Philippe Museum
The exhibition also presents a selection of some 190 pieces belonging to the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva and exceptionally allowed to travel for the Tokyo event. Those from the “Antique Collection” (sixteenth to early nineteenth century) include some of the oldest watches in the world and numerous technical and aesthetic masterpieces illustrating the entire history of horology.
Famous Patek Philippe owners
Patek Philippe watches have adorned the wrists of some of the most famous faces in history. A new section at this year’s event called “Historical Owners” looks at some of the most interesting stories from the archive of the watch maison. One timepiece in the exhibit is a pendant watch presented to Queen Victoria at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, along with other timepieces belonging to famous patrons.
Limited editions unveiled at Art Tokyo 2023
Featuring among these six new introductions are two technical pieces making their global debut: a new self-winding Quadruple Complication (Reference 5308P-010) and the first World Time watch equipped with a date display synchronised with local time (Reference 5330G-010). The choice is completed by an exclusive version of the World Time Minute Repeater (Reference 5531R-014), a refined reinterpretation of the ladies’ Moon Phase model (Reference 7121/200G-010) and two new elegantly understated Calatrava models (References 6127G-010 and 7127G-010).
