Hermès Turns the Arceau Into a Six-Piece Study in Geometric Equestrian Art

Hermès has always treated the horse as more than a house emblem, and the Arceau Cavalier en Formes pushes that idea into unusually layered territory.

Limited to just six pieces, the watch combines métiers d’art with serious mechanical watchmaking, using a fragmented equestrian image drawn from Gianpaolo Pagni’s graphic world.

It’s a piece for collectors who look at a dial as both an artwork and a moving mechanical object.

At a glance

A silk scarf idea reworked for the wrist

The visual language of the Arceau Cavalier en Formes comes from a design created for a Hermès silk scarf by Gianpaolo Pagni.

Rather than translating that artwork literally, Hermès breaks the equestrian figure into geometric signs, partial views and shifts in perspective.

The result is not a conventional horse portrait, but a composition that asks the eye to assemble the image piece by piece.

That approach suits the Arceau case well, since Henri d’Origny’s asymmetrical stirrup-inspired lugs already give the collection a quietly off-centre character.

Layers of sapphire, paint and gold

The dial is the heart of the watch, and its depth comes from painting on both sides of a sapphire crystal.

That double-sided treatment lets motifs sit on different planes, creating a sense of overlap between foreground and background.

Blue accents, circular and square forms, engraved passages and miniature-painted details move across the surface without settling into a single flat image.

At the centre, a horse engraved in yellow gold appears in fragments, catching light through the transparent layers around it.

It’s an unusually architectural way to stage a dial, with the decoration depending as much on transparency and reflection as on colour.

A chiming tourbillon inside the artwork

Hermès pairs the artistic dial with the hand-wound H1924 movement, a calibre that brings together a minute repeater and a Lift tourbillon.

The tourbillon sits at 6 o’clock, where its cage carries the double H motif linked to the historic elevator at Hermès’ 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré flagship in Paris.

The movement runs at 3Hz and offers up to 90 hours of power reserve, giving the watch a practical reserve despite its highly specialised construction.

For a piece this visually expressive, the choice of a repeater is apt, adding an acoustic layer to a watch already built around depth, light and motion.

Details & Specifications

The Arceau Cavalier en Formes sits exactly where Hermès watchmaking is most distinctive, between craft, house symbolism and mechanical ambition.

It won’t be a watch for discreet minimalists, but for collectors drawn to rare handcraft and poetic complications, its six-piece run gives the idea real focus.