ArtyA’s Complexity Métiers d’Art Puts Hand Finishing Inside a Sapphire Theatre

ArtyA’s Complexity was already an unusually theatrical piece of high watchmaking, with two inclined tourbillons staged under sapphire domes and a movement visible from nearly every angle.

The new Complexity Métiers d’Art keeps that architecture intact, but changes the emotional temperature of the watch.

Instead of relying only on mechanical spectacle, it turns the dial and movement into a showcase for hand engraving, hammering, perlage and polished bevels.

At a glance

Two inclined tourbillons, one mechanical average

The heart of the watch remains the Complexity-01, a manual-winding calibre developed with high-complication specialist Purtec Sàrl in Vallorbe.

Its defining feature is a pair of inclined Cônillon tourbillons placed opposite each other at 12 and 6 o’clock.

Each cage completes a rotation every 30 seconds, with the two assemblies turning in different directions.

The geometry is deliberately unconventional, as the axes of the balances, cages and pallet forks are not parallel.

That arrangement gives the display a restless, almost architectural motion, particularly when viewed through the watch’s raised optical domes.

Between the two tourbillons sits a differential, which divides energy from the barrel and produces a mechanical average of the two regulators’ rates.

The practical idea is that the two tourbillons work together, helping to soften individual rate variations as the watch moves through changing wrist positions.

Handwork moves to the foreground

The Métiers d’Art edition gives the movement a more tactile, less clinical personality than a purely technical openworked watch.

The upper surfaces of the bridges are shot blasted by hand, while the lower surfaces are manually hammered to create an uneven landscape of small peaks and recesses.

Every angle across the movement is hand bevelled and polished, giving bright edges that stand out against the darker black rhodium treatment.

The bridge flanks are drawn with a cabron buff, a detail that adds satin texture beside the polished and hammered surfaces.

Around the differential, the mainplate is decorated with hand-applied perlage, pulling attention toward the mechanical link between the two regulating organs.

The centre bridge is finished with a polished moulding that frames the differential more clearly, while a numbered Complexity plate on the movement side is engraved and bevelled by hand.

A dial cut with individual burin marks

The dial is not treated as a background element.

It begins with a finely sandblasted surface, then receives radiating scratches cut individually with a burin.

Because the engraving varies in depth, the dial catches light with a less predictable rhythm than a stamped or machine-finished texture.

The applied indexes get similar attention, with sandblasted upper faces, hand-polished bevels and cabron-drawn flanks.

It’s a small detail, but it matters in a watch where almost every visible plane is competing for attention.

A sapphire case shaped around the movement

The Complexity Métiers d’Art remains housed in ArtyA’s transparent case, cut from a solid block of synthetic sapphire.

The case measures 42mm by 48mm by 13mm and uses a triple-concave middle designed to wrap around the wrist.

Even the crown is cut from crystal, reinforcing the sense that the movement is suspended inside a transparent shell.

Above each tourbillon, a dedicated optical dome in the crystal acts as a natural magnifier.

ArtyA says each case requires 120 hours of diamond machining followed by more than 140 hours of polishing, which explains why the exterior is as much a technical object as the calibre inside.

Details & Specifications

The Complexity Métiers d’Art is aimed at collectors who want more than a transparent high-complication machine.

Its appeal is in the collision between extreme mechanics and visible human labour, where the irregular mark of the tool becomes as important as the motion of the tourbillons.