Sursum Corda

QUAI DES BERGUES SURSUM CORDA

The Quai des Bergues “Sursum Corda” is a unique piece created to celebrate the 175-year anniversary of Czapek & Cie and to demonstrate the beauty of craftsmanship and spirit of resilience in difficult times.

The timepiece is based on the Quai des Bergues caliber and gold case – the company’s first collection. The Sursum Corda dial features the best of métiers d’art: a world map in cloisonné enamel enclosed within a brushed white gold ring, and an outer hour ring with beautiful hand engraved waves. Laser blasting, cutting and soft sand blasting are employed to create a velvet effect. The base plate of the dial was cast by Precinox in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, and is made from a special white gold alloy in order to facilitate all these techniques. The cloisonné world map is made by Donze Cadrans. The continents are displayed in a blue/grey finish and softly blasted to feature the terrain. Each continent is then contained within thin (0.1 mm) walls of white gold, barriers against the five seas which are finished in turquoise.  The ring encompassing the world bears the Latin inscription “Sursum Corda” - along with its English translation “Lift Up your Hearts”. Additionally, the motto is also shown in the three main Swiss languages, French, German and Italian. Finally, hand-engraving of the outer ring was executed by master engraver Michele Rothen, following a design by Adrian Buchmann. The hand-engraving of the dial took more than 40 hours to complete. Other dial features - such as the small seconds sub-dial, inscriptions ring and hour ring, were manufactured by Metalem.

Although looking like a world timer, the watch is in fact powered by the Czapek manually wound proprietary SXH calibre, which features: hours, minutes and small seconds functions, along with an impressive 7-day power reserve.