In 1965, Jean Schlumberger created the Bird on a Rock brooch for Tiffany & Co., inspired by yellow cockatoos he saw in Asia and the Caribbean. The iconic jeweled pin became a celebrated motif at Tiffany & Co., produced in several variations and eventually reinterpreted into various jewelry pieces. Now, the jewelry house returns to Jean Schlumberger’s avian creation to signal its advancement into high watchmaking with the introduction of the Tiffany & Co. Bird on a Flying Tourbillon watch: its first flying tourbillon watch, which took two years to develop.
As expected, Tiffany & Co.’s exquisite jewelry-making technique is on full display here. The dial is home to a pair of diamond-set white and yellow gold birds (147 diamonds) in flight, soaring next to the diamond-set time display subdial (168 diamonds) and flying tourbillon. The flying tourbillon, set with one diamond, sits under a hand-faceted sapphire crystal dome, which according to Tiffany & Co., is a first for watches. The faceted dome rotates at the same pace as the tourbillon, which is one revolution per minute. As you can imagine, much like an exquisitely cut diamond, the faceted crystal surface catches the light and casts dancing sparkles and shadows across the dial as it rotates.
Naturally, the famous Tiffany Blue shade is used for the sky background-themed dial, crafted from 16 cloud-like shapes cut from wafer-thin slices of natural turquoise gemstones. The clouds are hand-polished and then set on various levels to create depth. This type of intricate turquoise marquetry took about 45 hours to complete.
Housing the whimsical dial is a white gold case, 39mm in diameter and decorated with 340 round brilliant snow-set diamonds. The winding crown is fashioned to look like the famous Tiffany engagement ring, complete with the company’s famed six-prong setting securing a solitaire diamond. The back of the case is embellished with even more precious gems; 143 snow-set diamonds are snow-set into the pair of movement plates.
That movement is the bespoke Caliber AFT24T01, developed by Swiss movement maker Artime under the creative direction of Tiffany & Co. The manual-winding movement includes 205 components, operates at 21,600 beats per hour (3 Hz), and supplies 60 hours of power reserve. The duo of high-polished star-shaped bridges on the movement to secure both the tourbillon and time display subdial is again inspired by the six-prong Tiffany setting, one punctuated with a blue Tiffany & Co. logo.
The Bird on a Flying Tourbillon watch is paired with a navy blue alligator strap, which fastens around the wrist via an 18k white gold T buckle set with 49 round brilliant diamonds. If you’ve been keeping count, the watch is set with 848 diamonds for a total of 3.9 carats. From the photos, I think this watch looks magnificent; it’s exactly the type of high-jewelry and high-watchmaking piece I’d expect from Tiffany & Co. — creative, artistic, immaculately executed, and, of course, super-shiny. The birds, the faceted tourbillon cupola, the diamond engagement-like crown, the turquoise cloud pattern dial, and so on, are all beautiful.
What’s more, it’s pretty significant that Tiffany has now decided to play in the flying tourbillon sandbox, which I’m sure signals that we can expect other high-horology pieces from the company in the near future, bejeweled or not. The Tiffany & Co. Bird on a Flying Tourbillon watch (ref. 74863264) is limited to only 25 pieces. Despite direct requests for pricing, as of press time the company has chosen not to make the retail price public, but expect it to be mind-bendingly expensive. For more information, please visit the brand’s website.