Some great masters exist undoubtedly in this world, unfortunately, they are few. One of these masters is Kari Voutilainen.
I decided to shortly present some of his work/creations – the Chronograph series. On his website http://voutilainen.ch/site/the-watches/ we can find 3 pieces: Masterpiece Chronograph, Chronograph Monopoussoir and Masterpiece Chronograph II.
The Webster dictionary defines a masterpiece as: “a work done with extraordinary skill; especially: a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement“. I couldn’t agree more as a definition for Mr.’s Voutilainen watches. His work combines beautiful technical thinking and beautiful handcrafted art. In these times of gadgets and smartphones, the watches tend to become more as a beauty accessory, but I, personally, I am still looking at my watch when I want to know the time, even in front of my computer or smartphone. I love to watch the hands moving and chronographs are quite something to look at. It’s fun to push buttons, I love buttons.
The in-house design features 30 minutes counter and seconds for chronograph and hours, minutes and seconds for time. The hands are from steel and gold on a 30mm movement in a 39mm case size.
The 18-karat gold engine turned dial, finished in white eggshell with applied numerals and indexes features at 6 o’clock the hour and minutes. The seconds are easy to view at 11 o’clock position while the seconds counter for chronograph has the main place on the dial and the 30 minutes counter is positioned at 3 o’clock. The subdials have very beautiful and discrete guilloche patterns.
The back view of the mechanism is simply fantastic: the bridges are plated in 18k gold, the face of the plates and bridges have a frosted finish while the sides are angled and polished offering a nice contrast. The main bridge has two inscriptions: Voutilainen and Motiers (the place of birth of this watch). The heart of this masterpieces beats with 21.600vph and has a power reserve of 55h, manual wounding.
Here are some extraordinary and detailed pictures of the Masterpiece Chronograph by Peter Chong:
http://peter-chong.blogspot.de/2011/02/kari-voutilainen-masterpiece.html
I would like to thank Mr. Voutilainen for the pictures. More information about him and his work can be found on http://voutilainen.ch/site/