Dresden, capital of the eastern German state of Saxony, is home to the Dresden State Art Collections, a group of 15 world famous museums that hold a multitude of international artisanal artefacts in safekeeping. Saxony is also home to luxury watchmaker A. Lange & Söhne, and in a unique collaboration, a small selection of exhibits with exciting stories has been paired with current A. Lange & Söhne models for a photo shoot.
The luxury watch brand has been supporting the Dresden State Art Collections as an official partner since 2006 and has now entered into a dialogue with handpicked masterpieces from Italy, Russia, India, China, Japan and Brazil. As different as the origins of these treasures may be, what each of them shares is an exciting background story. And what has us really excited are two India-centric exhibits—Saxonia watch with mother-of-pearl dial paired with a shallow nacre bowl and Lange 1 Moon Phase teamed with a plate with semi-precious stone inlay.
In the context of statecraft, generous gifts have always been a significant and effective diplomatic instrument. Numerous treasures in the portfolio of the State Art Collections still reflect the royal art of giving. Indian musicologist Raja Sourindro Mohun Tagore had a very special relationship with Dresden. In 1877, he sent three Indian musical instruments to the Saxon court as a gift and in return was awarded the Albert Order.
This was followed in 1882 by a second donation of 450 artefacts, including a checkerboard-patterned plate with semi-precious stone inlay. The court of Saxony always held Indian artisanship in high esteem. Tagore’s generous gift was tied with the request that the artistically crafted objects be publicly displayed. King Albert immediately transferred the collection to the city’s Ethnographic Museum that had been inaugurated only a few years earlier—there, it constituted the kernel of the South Asia department.
The Lange 1 Moon Phase watch has been paired with this black and white stone plate housed in the Museum of Ethnology. The white gold watch with a black dial was launched in January 2017 and combines a moon-phase display that is accurate to 122.6 years with a day/night indication. Behind the golden moon, the celestial disc, coupled with the hour wheel, performs a complete revolution every 24 hours.
On the disc, the different times of day are represented by varying blue hues caused by interference effects. During the day, it shows a bright sky without stars while at night, it depicts a dark sky with prominently contrasting laser-cut stars. Thus, the moon always orbits against a realistic background that doubles as a day/night indicator when setting the watch.
The other exhibit is a splendid bowl, densely faced with mother-of-pearl wafers, and a matching carafe, which found their way from India to Saxony along clandestine routes. Portuguese merchants are said to have first brought them from Gujarat to southern Germany. There, the two vessels were fitted with matching plinths, probably around 1540 in Nuremberg, to make them more attractive for the tastes of a German Renaissance nobility.
But how this early example of an intercultural art project eventually found its way to Saxony is largely speculative, as is its alleged baptismal use by the House of Wettin. What is certain, however, is that the precious ensemble was transferred to the Green Vault when the Dresden “art chamber” was dissolved in 1832.
This bowl is paired with A. Lange & Sohne’s Saxonia watch. The mother-of-pearl dial of the new Saxonia scintillates with colour as well. Slender hands and baton hour markers in solid gold emphasise the elegant design, complemented with a white alligator leather strap. It is available in white and pink gold.