Jacob & Co.

Jacob Arabo is known for his truly audacious and avant-garde designs, often incorporating skeletonisation and cased predominantly in sapphire crystal for unobstructed viewing, and exotic themes such as astronomy. The present watch ticks all of these boxes, and truly embodies the best of Jacob & Co. 

The most visually striking feature of the Astronomia is its structure. Housed within a black ceramic and sapphire crystal case is the caliber JCAM10, which by their own admission is one of the brand’s most advanced and complex movements. A triple axis flying tourbillon, rotating diamond moon, rotating Earth globe, and rotating dial where the time can be read, are mounted on separate arms and attached to the baseplate via a central pinion which itself rotates, completing a full rotation every 20 minutes. An astonishing 365 components are required to accomplish this masterclass in movement architecture and engineering, and despite the level of complication, the watch still manages to hold 60 hours of power. 

The timekeeping dial is a wonder in itself. Due to the entire platform’s rotation, a regular dial’s orientation would be ever changing, making the reading of time extremely inconvenient. Thus, the Astronomia features a patented differential system which spins in the opposite direction of the platform but at the same speed. As a result, the dial remains constantly upright and perfectly legible. 

With aventurine base plate mimicking the starry night sky and outer case structure fashioned from black ceramic channeling the blackness of space, the present watch is not only an horological marvel but also truly faithful to its subject matter. The new owner of the watch can be assured that they will be mesmerized every time they glance down at their wrist by the four individually spinning elements, while also being reminded about the beauty of our universe.