Lot 132

F. P. Journe

Jewellery Collection, Octa Divine

The name "Divine" lives up to its name: A stunningly beautiful, ultra-rare, precious diamond platinum wristwatch with original, marvellous pavé dial with brilliant-cut diamonds, auxiliary seconds, date display, moon phase and 120 hours power reserve indicator, delivered to the United Arab Emirates in 2007. This precious piece is set with 1,381 brilliant-cut diamonds of a total of 11.02 carats and has never been offered at an auction before; it is in excellent condition and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by François-Paul Journe

The Octa Divine from F. P. Journe’s Jewellery Collection is a masterpiece that spans the boundaries between haute horology and fine jewellery-making, radiating a presence that is as technically captivating as it is aesthetically impressive. The very first glance reveals that nothing has been left to chance here. Made in platinum, the watch exudes a sophisticated presence, further enhanced by the brilliant settings. Light refracts through the stones, dances across the precious metal, and gives the Octa Divine an aura that is both luxurious and refined.
Diamonds adorn the case and the bracelet, accentuating the gentle contours. The pavé dial appears even more vibrant thanks to the play of light, without compromising the clear and balanced layout that is so typical for Journe’s work. The striking date window, the unusual position of the small second, the elegant moon phase complication, and the elegantly integrated power reserve indicator create an overall picture that remains harmonious and clear despite the variety of functions.
Yet with F.P. Journe, true beauty is never just skin-deep. Inside the Octa Divine beats the caliber 1300-2, an automatic in-house movement made of 18-carat rose gold, which has helped establish the brand’s reputation as one of the great names in haute horlogerie. With its 22-carat rose gold rotor, it captures energy from even the slightest movement of the wrist and delivers a impressive power reserve of over five days.

"The construction of the Octa calibre has less powerful ties with horological history than do the constant-force device or resonance models, but it symbolises an horological ideal of giving timekeepers the highest possible degree of precision and autonomy! One can indeed note the fact that if church clocks are placed so high, in addition to enhancing visibility, it was mostly because it often took an entire month for the driving-weights to drop the length of their cords. Numerous systems were invented to increase the operating duration of timekeeping devices, meeting with various degrees of success. Given the small volume of a wristwatch, the size of the mainspring was automatically limited. Watchmakers therefore discovered the trick of adding an extra wheel to the customary geartrain in order to extend the duration of its development. Unfortunately, actually using this system, even with a stronger spring, led them to observe that the level of energy actually reaching the balance remained low. To compensate for this, they fitted a smaller balance using less energy, but which was also less stable. It is therefore not unusual to find that some watches able to run for several days display an extremely unpredictable level of precision.
This challenge was a powerful source of motivation! I then imagined that the best and the most obvious means of extending the running duration would be to extend the capacity of the spring development. The difficulty lay in integrating it on the same level as the gear-train and the escapement, given its stability: 1 metre and 1 millimetre thick. Thanks to the low torque of this spring, I could achieve extremely fast automatic winding (one and a half hours on a Chappuis cyclotest for over 5 days’ running).
Once the challenge of autonomy was thus successfully met with this automatic winding calibre, I knuckled down to the second challenge of managing to insert various complications into that same movement: power reserve with large date display, fly-back chronograph with large date display, retrograde annual calendar, etc… and of doing so while maintaining an identical size for all models in the Octa collection.
Three years of research and development were required before this automatic winding movement that is unique in the world could be presented to the public.”
François-Paul Journe