Century "Seven Wonders"

About Celadon Haute Horlogerie

Celadon Haute Horlogerie (Celadon HH) was founded with the sacred mission of creating the very finest Chinese watches, and to establish a purist Chinese haute horlogerie marque of global renown, and in so doing, raise the prestige and reputation of Chinese watchmaking.

The characteristics of Celadon HH watches are original and elegant design infused with the charisma and magnificence of five thousand years of Chinese history and heritage, combined with quality of materials and craftsmanship of the highest level, and the advancement of traditional Chinese artisan crafts with centuries or even millennia of history.

As the pioneer of Chinese haute horlogerie, Celadon HH has led the way in establishing the governing tenets and characteristics that will define the high watchmaking of China in the decades and perhaps centuries to come.

The Celadon Century

Handcrafted and assembled by AHCI master watchmaker Lin Yong Hua in his atelier, the surpassing quality of the Century is absolutely beyond all reproach.

Designed to be the watch that will come to define Chinese high horology.

An elegant case inspired by classical Chinese history and culture, paired with a movement exclusive to Celadon HH that is designed, created and finished by Master Lin Yong Hua (LYH).

The vision behind the Celadon Century is to create a proudly Chinese watch of the highest quality, of wholly original design inspired by five millennia of Chinese culture and history, which would be a platform to showcase the very best of Chinese artisan crafts like enamel art, the various porcelains, silk, and gemstone carving.

The movement itself would form the basis for a family of innovative complications developed down the line.

The first series of the Century will be offered with cloisonné enamel dials created by Grandmaster Xiong Songtao, third generation heir to the family of enamel artisans of the Chinese imperial court.

Cloisonné Dials

The Century Cloisonné showcases Celadon’s characteristic cloisonné enamel dials, an art form which has over 600 years of history in China. The technique of cloisonné first arrived in China from Persia in the 15th century Ming dynasty, and it was further developed and evolved independently from other enamel traditions elsewhere, flourishing with extravagant commissions by the imperial court and with many provinces forming their own distinct school of enamel technique.

The cloisonné used in the Century originates from the Beijing tradition, also known as “Jingtai Lan”, the most prestigious in all of China given its status as the imperial capital. Our dials are handcrafted in the atelier of Grandmaster Xiong Songtao, whose family have been Imperial Enamellers to the Emperors of China for many generations. Grandmaster Xiong’s technique differs from European cloisonné by his use of thinner gold wire, which requires more skill and results in a more intricate image. He has also innovated a new technique of creating cloisonné for our dials which is actually much more complex and finer than the style used in imperial times.

The Century Cloisonné premiers as a collection with two distinct dial designs, each reflecting Eastern and Western art, the latter which “Starry Night” represents. We laid before ourselves a challenge to employ Chinese enamelling techniques to depict a profoundly European painting, and created a masterpiece that Van Gogh himself would have been proud of.

The entire process of creating the cloisonné enamel dials, from laying out the image on a solid silver base and deciding the individual enamel colours, to finely laying the gold wire to form the image by hand and tweezer, and finally firing around 25 times at 900 degrees in a specialised oven, involves over 45 individual steps.

As a testament to the great skill required in creating our cloisonné dials, the gold wire used to form the cloisonné image range from 0.04 to 0.07mm in thickness, and takes an experienced artisan over 50 hours to form this intricate image by hand by carefully tweaking and laying the gold wire with a fine tweezer on the solid silver base that will become the watch dial, a canvas that is less than 30mm in diameter.