Letter from the Publisher

MAGIC ROUNDABOUTS
With its Tourbillon Orbital, Jean Dunand does not operate in the
third dimension, but instead offers a sophisticated system in which the
tourbillon spins on its axis in one minute, while performing a complete
turn of the dial in one hour. The same principle of a double revolution
applies to the Polo Tourbillon Relatif Limelight Jazz by Piaget, interpreted in
2010 in an extremely musical version with a black grand feu enameled case,
engraved with musical notes and featuring a dial that looks like a vinyl record.
Suspended from the tip of the minute hand, the mobile flying tourbillon
carriage appears to be disconnected from the movement driving it, creating
a fine encounter between mechanical prowess and visual magic. For the 75th
birthday of its owner Rolf Schnyder, Ulysse Nardin has launched the Freak
Diavolo, a sportier new version of the InnoVision. Its tourbillon performs a
complete turn around its center in one hour and indicates the minute. A flying
tourbillon revolves majestically above the carrousel. Its carriage is equipped
with an arrow indicating the seconds on a semi-circular transparent dial, and
performing one full tour per minute. The zero always begins on the axis of
the minutes indicator. There is no carrousel at Cartier, but instead a central
elongated tourbillon carriage turning around the dial in one minute. Placed
above the movement of the Rotonde Astrotourbillon, between two dials,
it is balanced by a platinum counterweight.
top left
Jean Dunand, Tourbillon Orbital
top right
Piaget, Polo Tourbillon Relatif
Limelight Jazz
right
Cartier, Rotonde Astrotourbillon
far right
Ulysse Nardin, Freak Diavolo
• 172 Grand Complications, Vol. VII