n 1745, King Louis XV of France hosted the wedding of his son, the Dauphin Louis, to the Infanta Maria Theresa Raphael of Spain. Held at the Palace of Versailles, the marriage ceremony itself is hardly remembered today, but the masquerade ball hosting an estimated 1500 costumed guests in the gilded Hall of Mirrors (galerie des Glaces) is still remembered as one of the most spectacular and historically important parties in recorded history.

One of the many gossipy tidbits of the all-night party is that of Louis XV himself passing shoulder- to-shoulder through the packed ballroom with his entourage, each dressed as rather enormous, sculpted yew tree. The event was soon dubbed The Yew Tree Ball (Le Bal des Ifs) by the ever- gossipy French press. Why would a king don such a costume and risk exposure among the throng? To flirt, of course, with the bewitching Madame d’Etiolles, an upwardly mobile Parisian beauty who would soon become the official court mistress of the king, taking the revered title Marquise de Pompadour.

Among the 2300 rooms at the Palace of Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors is not only the most grand, but also the most opulent. Commissioned by Louis the XIV, designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and finally completed in 1684, the 73-meter room boasts columns of marble that reach up nearly 10.4 meters from the parquet oak floor to create 17 grand arches inset with 357 mirrors that reflect the exterior gardens and, when hosting festivities, the mirrors reflect 8 enormous crystal chandeliers (as well as 12 smaller ones), each lit with hundreds of candles. To this day, the Hall of Mirrors serves its intended purpose of dazzling its guests and asserting the undeniable supremacy of The House of Bourbon, as the Louis dynasty was known.

Montblanc celebrates the grandeur of Versailles and its most storied ball in the Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles. Every detail of this watch takes its aesthetic cue from Versailles, and the dial recreates the Hall of Mirrors on the night of The Yew Tree Ball. This decorative feat involves traditional enameling, micro-painting and inlaying of marble and oak. Less traditional, though equally exquisite, are the use of sophisticated 3D- modelling and laser-etching into both sapphire and brass.

Precision timing is achieved with Montblanc’s patented Exo Tourbillon mechanism, a complication developed in-house over three years at the Montblanc Manufacture in Villeret, Switzerland and first released in 2010.

One of the most lasting impressions of the Palace of Versailles is that, despite housing over 2300 rooms and having been built up across generations, its style is essentially Baroque. As one moves through the palace, one finds true harmony from the grandest architectural gesture to the smallest detail. In a similar gesture, the dial of the Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles brings together a surprising number of decorative motifs using a variety of artistic methods and materials while achieving aesthetic harmony.

The main dial recreates The Yew Tree Ball, using as its inspiration the etching “Decoration for a Masked Ball at Versailles” by Charles Nicolas Cochin I. First printed in 1746 to memorialise the evening, prints of this work now reside in collections ranging from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to London’s British Museum.

The base of the dial is constructed from white gold 750/1000 (18 karats), which is then covered with black enamel and topped with gold paillons before being baked in the oven. This enamel and gold treatment gives the effect of the candle-lit chandeliers being reflected in the windows, creating an eye-catching depth to the dial. The archways are created from two types of stone: the milky white Cacholong, a variety of opal, and Sarrancolin marble sourced from the same quarry in France’s Hautes-Pyrénées region used for the marble in the original Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. For the floor, solid oak is cut and inlaid on the dial to recreate the parquet pattern.

Every material found on the dial base will vary naturally, making each Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles slightly different.

Many of the existing prints of Cochin’s etching of The Yew Tree Ball were only partially filled in, and some examples leave ghostly outlines of the guests in the hall. To capture the ethereal quality of these etchings, as well as the sense of secrecy and gossip surrounding Louis XV’s disguised appearance, Montblanc’s artisans have turned to etching the chandeliers and costumed guests into sapphire plates that rest on top of the main dial. Specifically, you can make out the yew-tree costumes on the left side of the dial, where the mystery of which one hides Louis XV remains.

Etching sapphire is a modern technique deployed onto a modern material, and yet the sapphire etchings blend seamlessly into the traditional marquetry of the main dial, adding visual depth while capturing the qualities of Cochin’s prints. Hand-painting of the cables holding the chandeliers brings a touch of marquetry, and yet another layer of depth.

Inspired by clocks and pocket watches from the era of Louis XIV, the time-telling dial sits at 12- o’clock as the grand visual feature of the Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles. This dial directly ties the watch to the grand traditions of haute horlogerie in vogue with Europe’s elites during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Champlevé enamel is a technique used in a metal piece in which hollows are carved and then filled with enamel. The piece is then baked in an oven until the enamel fuses.

The technique forms the luminous white backdrop of the time-telling dial, while blue enamel paint is used for the Roman numerals and pure gold powder is painted on in order to create the sun’s extended rays in the center. Over this dial, a laser-machined 3N-gold supporting ring is laid, creating a decorative framing structure that mimics the polished brass detailing in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The section framing the tourbillon recreates stained-glass motifs, including the fleur-de-lys, as found throughout the Royal Chapel of Versailles.

The hands of the time-telling dial are styled like those found on Baroque clocks of the era. However, because the scale of a wristwatch is so reduced, traditional milling techniques are replaced by today’s laser cutting. The precise detail of this highly decorative yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) handset invites the viewer to peer through a loupe magnifier to admire the finest details.

Even more impressive, perhaps, is the brass Apollo head that acts as a cap to the central arbor on which the hands are mounted. This figure mimics the Apollonian sun at the center of the large clock above the king’s chambers at the Marble Court at Versailles. Curiously, this clock was originally not fitted with a mechanical device because it marked the time of the death of kings, first Louis XIV and then Louis XV. However, it would later be fitted with a working mechanism. To create this fascinating visage, Montblanc’s designer created a three-dimensional digital scan of the Apollo sun on the door of the Salon de Venus at Versailles. Using multiple camera angles, a complex digital file containing over 1.5 million data points then had to be reduced to a manageable file to direct the laser-etching machines.

A further heightened expression of haute horlogerie arrives with the yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) case of the Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles. A hand-engraved laurel wreath—long associated with Apollo in ancient Greece and still used around the world today to symbolise victory—adorns the bezel. Montblanc’s hand-engravers have also set a different, yet still relevant, narrative into the intricate caseband engraving. In this engraving, we find a recreation of a painting by François Lemoyne from the Salon de la Paix at Versailles in which Louis XV is offering an olive branch to all of Europe, while above him Minerva— the namesake of Montblanc’s historical manufacture and the Roman goddess of arts, war and justice—instructs Mercury to keep closed the Gates of Janus, a reference to the practice during the Roman Empire of closing the gates of the Janus temple during times of peace, a symbol of stable boundaries. This painting casts Louis XV as a Roman Emperor, something very much in vogue as Neoclassicism asserted itself throughout Europe during the Enlightenment.

First released in 2010, Montblanc’s Exo Tourbillon is a patented mechanism that took three years to develop, bringing novel watchmaking ideas to the tourbillon.

“Exo” is Greek for “outside,” and in this instance the term refers to the balance wheel residing above the tourbillon cage. This unique solution not only minimises the diameter of the tourbillon cage and rotating escapement, but it also allows the balance wheel to be large enough to house 18 adjustment screws (regulating weights), which in turn adds mass to the unit.

Remarkably, the balance wheel mechanism is anchored by a single-arm bridge. To align and secure a single-arm bridge to the tolerances required of this mechanism is a testament to the savoir-faire of Montblanc’s master watchmakers. Aesthetically speaking, the beautifully engraved and gold-coated stainless steel single-arm bridge arcs in perfect unison with the domed shape of the time-telling dial, helping to create visual harmony between the two sub-dials.

Beyond a technical improvement, the unique configuration of the Exo Tourbillon puts the balance wheel slightly above the dial, displaying the beating heart of the watch in a mesmerising fashion. Meanwhile, because this is a one-minute tourbillon in which the mechanism revolves once every sixty seconds, the tourbillon also acts as a running-second indicator.

The movement’s bridges and gear train, largely visible through the transparent caseback, are finished by hand, including decorative work such as Côtes de Genève striping, circular graining, mirror-polishing, and top-grade anglage with precise inner-angle beveling, largely regarded the most difficult aspect of movement finishing.

The box for the Montblanc Star Legacy Suspended Exo Tourbillon Château de Versailles was constructed by the Parisian luxury table-maker, Elie Bleu, in operation since 1976. The music box inside is by Switzerland’s Reuge, which has specialised in luxury music boxes and mechanical songbirds since 1865. The music played by the coffret was presented at Versailles to celebrate the wedding of the Dauphin Louis and his bride on that storied night in February of 1745. Specifically, the music is by Jean-Philippe Rameau with lyrics originally written by none other than Voltaire.

Thanks to an external trigger on the side of the box, the music will play and the watch will turn in place as if dancing at the great masquerade ball. This spectacle takes place upon a real oak miniature parquet floor surrounded by real marble arches mimicking those of the Hall of Mirrors. On the outer walnut face of the box, the scene of The Yew Tree Ball from Cochin’s famous engraving is laser-etched to exacting precision, a signature Montblanc treatment.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Movement

• Montblanc Manufacture Calibre MB M16.68

• Type of movement: Mechanical movement with manual winding mechanism, patented one- minute Suspended Exo Tourbillon

• Dimensions: Diameter = 38.30mm; height = 6.45mm

• Number of components: 218

• Number of rubies: 19

• Power Reserve: Approx. 50 hours

• Balance: Screw balance, diameter = 14.5 mm; moment of inertia = 59 mgcm2

• Frequency: 18,000 A/h (2.5 Hz)

• Hairspring: Hairspring with Phillips terminal curve

Habillage

• Case: Yellow Gold 750/1000 (18 karats) case; hand-engraved case band depicting Minerva, Mercury, and the closing of the Temple of Janus. Yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) fixed bezel, hand engraving depicting a laurel wreath

• Crystal: Domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.

• Back: Yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) caseback engraved with the limited edition number; with a sapphire crystal

• Dimensions: Diameter = 44.8mm; height = 15.52mm

• Water resistance: 3 bar (30m)

• Crown: Yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) crown with Montblanc-cut diamond (approx. 0.11 carat)

Dial

• Dial in white gold 750/1000 (18 karats) depicting the scene of the Yew Tree Ball in the Hall of Mirrors, composed of yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) and marquetry of Sarrancolin marble, Cacholong stone, champlevé enamel, and oak; laser-engraved sapphire plate depicting the characters and chandeliers.
• Yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) skeletonised hour and minute hands, inspired by 17th-century clocks
• Fixed applique depicting the head of Apollo, emblem of the Sun King chosen by Louis XIV

Wristband

• Gray interchangeable calf leather strap with alligator print and gold- colored stitching, semi-matte finish, yellow gold 750/1000 (18 karats) triple-folding clasp

Limited Edition

• 8