For many prestigious manufactures, the Chinese zodiac is a great excuse to strengthen ties with Asian clients, and make their presence felt.

Launching limited editions for the Lunar New Year is a tradition that goes back over a decade at some companies, where watchmakers dedicate models to the new Chinese zodiac sign in the twelve-year cycle. In February 2024, the Year of the Dragon will come around again — a mythological creature that artisian crafts artists take great pleasure in depicting on dials.

Jaquet Droz

We begin with the small manufacture of Jaquet Droz, Swatch Group's quietly confident flagship oriented towards seasoned collectors. This watchmaker presented a piece unique called the Imperial Dragon Automaton Red Gold – Cuprite. Its precursor appeared in 2020: the Dragon Automaton featuring 16 moving parts which performed nine animations (one of the most complicated on the market).

The watchmakers at Jaquet Droz developed it in partnership with the book illustrator John Howe, famous for illustrating works by many remarkable fantasy writers, including artwork for J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Howe was later invited to work as the conceptual designer on the film adaptation of the same epic fantasy by its director Peter Jackson. The collaborative timepiece turned out to be a masterpiece: the miniature 3D dragon has been made extremely realistic, as every part of its body has been sculpted, polished, and engraved by hand.

When activated using the pusher, the gold dragon clutching a cuprite ball in its claws comes to life for up to a full 15 seconds on a dial engraved using the partition-filling cloisonné enamel technique.

The timekeeping display and animation are controlled by caliber JD 6150 with a silicon balance spring and a micro-rotor made of rose gold. The movement is housed in a 43-mm gold case.

Its automaton module has a separate mainspring barrel and its own regulating organ for adjusting the speed at which the animation unfolds. In order to emphasize the importance of this creative partnership, the rotor has been inscribed with John Howe's signature.

Vacheron Constantin

The Genevan Maison Vacheron Constantin was one of the first to take on the Chinese zodiac calendar. In 2012, they dedicated their first piece in their Legend of the Chinese Zodiac series to the Year of the Snake.

The new Métiers d’Art Legend of the Chinese Zodiac – Year of the Dragon was unveiled early in September this year: the limited edition was presented as part of the Watches and Wonders trade show in Shanghai.

As per tradition, it was launched with two case options: one in rose gold and another in 950-grade platinum. Needless to say, these were limited editions with 25 pieces available in each case material.

The Maison's top enamel artists and engravers have worked on the dials for the latest editions. Set on an enamel "base" made using the Grand Feu enameling technique, the ornate dragon and clouds have been meticulously crafted.

Not only does this collection stand out for the level of artisan decorative techniques employs, it also exhibits technical finesse.

The manufacture caliber 2460 G4, comprising 237 components, has been built to display the hours, minutes, date, and day of the week through transparent cut-out apertures using four peripheral disks.

This engineering approach hasn't limited the space for artistic creativity — the entire dial center was left free to let the imagination run wild.

Chopard

The L.U.C XP Urushi Year of the Dragon model will be the final act in Chopard's dramatic Chinese zodiac line. The company launched its first model in the L.U.C XP Urushi series for the Lunar New Year in 2013.

In other words, 2024 will complete one of Chinese astrology's twelve-year cycles, and this full cycle will be celebrated in the coming year with a full box set of all twelve models.

In keeping with tradition, all 88 dials in the latest limited edition were hand-crafted in Japan by Master Minori Koizumi of the Yamada Heiando, official purveyor of lacquerware to the Japanese Imperial family.

The watch's lacquer dial depicts a dragon clutching a blue pearl in its claw made of mother-of-pear. It was using the Maki-e technique with Urushi lacquer, where a layer of gold flakes is applied to create the illustration. The time is indicated by gilded hour and minute Dauphine hands.

Beating inside the 18-carat "ethical" rose-gold case is the manufacture L.U.C 96.17-L movement with a micro-rotor made of 22-carat gold, decorated with a sunburst pattern and the L.U.C logo.

Jaeger-LeCoultre

The artisans at Jaeger-LeCoultre's Métiers Rares atelier have also been working on their own piece of fine timekeeping art: the Reverso Tribute Enamel "Dragon" (Ref. Q39324D1).

The iconic pink-gold swiveling case is graced with a dial coated with black Grand Feu enamel. Creating such a rich, glossy black required five or six coats of enamel, and each new layer was followed by another round of firing, cooling, then polishing. 

While the front dial displays the familiar Dauphine gold hands and applied hour markers on a "chemin de fer" minute track, the reverse side has given free reign to exquisite engraving.

Once the surface has already been coated with Grand Feu enamel, ten gravers in different sizes are used to carve out the dragon surrounded by gold clouds. It takes unparalleled concentration, precise movements, and no less than 80 hours to make one of these illustrations.

As a final step, the polished surface on the dragon's body and the tiniest details of its scales are shaded in with black rhodium, while the clouds are given their contrasting texture with a sandblasted finish.

The model is powered by the hand-wound manufacture cal. 822 movement, and unsurprisingly, this piece is only made to order. 

Bovet

A sculpted dragon carved out of a solid block of 18-carat red gold reigns supreme in the center of the dial composition on Bovet's Recital 26 Chapter Two Golden Dragon model.

Unlike other relief dragon figures, this one actually floats above the lower half of the dial, coiling its scaly tail around the moon-phase display at 9 o'clock, and partially obscuring the patented double-sided flying tourbillon positioned at 6 o'clock.

Engraving the details on each of these figures takes the masters at Bovet up to around 50 hours. Then the fiery-red ruby is set in the dragon's eye, and the entire sculpture is assembled in and around the movement.

Maison Bovet's precursor edition was launched in a sapphire case three years ago, nominated in the Mechanical Exception category at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), and awarded the best-in-show Aiguille d'Or prize.

The latest edition celebrating the New Year boasts the same exquisite technical complexity. The movement with a five-day power reserve is housed in a gold case that narrows towards the bottom with a window between the upper lugs for the linear power reserve indication.

There are two clear domed sapphire indications: one for the hours and minutes at 12 o'clock, and another for a second time zone at 3 o'clock.

Arnold & Son

Arnold & Son have introduced two themed models in one go for the Lunar New Year (availability of each version limited to eight pieces) — the Moon plays a special role in this brand's catalog.

The Perpetual Moon Year of the Dragon has been launched in a 41.5-mm case made of red gold with either a black or blue dial made of aventurine glass. The upper half of the dial is dominated by a huge aperture by wristwatch standards — the moon-phase display stretches 29 mm from edge to edge!

Floating above the map of the starry sky with hand-painted Ursa Major and Cassiopeia constellations is a realistic Moon measuring 11.2 mm in diameter. Both the Moon and constellations are coated with Super-LumiNova lume.

The lower half of the dial is dominated by a relief dragon made of rose gold with impressively detailed scales, talons, and whiskers. The movement that keeps the indications and complications running is the hand-wound A&S1512 manufacture caliber, which has two barrels that guarantee 90 hours of power reserve.

The secret to this watch is that it solves the complicated problem of accurately indicating the Moon's phase by using an original display on the caseback, which shows the age of the Moon using a hand on a graduated scale.

The watchmaker's second debut is called the Luna Magna "Year of the Dragon", and it's fairly thick with a case measuring 15.9 mm in height and 44 mm in diameter. This is due to the 12 mm spherical Moon set at 6 o'clock.

The pietersite dial version is made of polished red gold and pietersite — a rare variety of chalcedony quartz with a purplish-blue chatoyancy, or cat's eye effect. The onyx dial version naturally has a Moon made of red gold and black onyx.

The subdial for the hours and minutes has been shifted upwards, and comes together with the complication to form a top-heavy figure eight.

Its impressive hand-crafted gold dragon coils around the periphery of the dial, dipping behind the opal disk of the time display, leaving the lower half of its body still visible on the left of the subdial, as its head and upper body emerge on the right.

In this case, the watch is build around the manually wound A&S1021 manufacture movement, which is also equipped with another moon-phase indication on the caseback side.

TAG Heuer

TAG Heuer decided not to wait until December to announce their novelty. The release of two new Carrera Chronograph Year of the Dragon editions took place back in November: one in steel (300 pieces) and a rose-gold edition (50 pieces).

The vintage sports style typical of this family of chronographs has been preserved: their "panda-style" dials with counters at 9, and 3 o'clock look staunchly traditional.

The only thing that hints at the connection with the zodiac sign on the dial side is the calligraphic dragon character, which is discreetly placed beneath the axis of the hour and minute hands.

The mythical creature itself occupies a place on the sapphire crystal caseback — its image has been printed around the glass in black and gold tones. The watch is powered by a Heuer 02 movement, equipped with a column wheel and vertical clutch. With a balance frequency of 4 Hz, the movement accumulates energy to keep the watch running for up to 80 hours.