BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
The world of independent horology is alive and buzzing today with so many new names coming onto the scene. But we mustn’t forget those established for some time; while new brands steal the show, folks like Dutch brothers Tim and Bart Grönefeld built the hype the newcomers are riding on.
I’ve spoken with many watchmakers in the past and they’ve always said that it’s difficult to balance what they want to make with what their clients want. Grönefeld is no exception, and they see their new 1941 Quadrivium Remontoire Tourbillon watch as a “greatest hits” masterpiece.
Grönefeld says that the inspiration for this new piece came from the popularity of its previous watches, including the One Hertz, the Parallax Tourbillon and the Remontoire. Those watches may no longer be made, but the watch market’s demand needs to be satisfied somehow, and the 1941 Quadrivium looks to be the answer.
Two versions are being made, limited to 28 examples each: one in tantalum and the other in platinum. Both feature a case in Grönefeld’s 1941 design language, measuring 41mm x 11.3mm and offering 30m of water resistance. They come with a wide range of strap choices from the Dutch brand, luckily, their website has a little configurator to play around with.
The 1941 Quadrivium has a frosted dial base with stainless steel elements and white gold hour markers. Blued steel hands provide contrast, and the whole layout is, frankly, glorious. A long and thin seconds hand sits at the centre while the time is offset to the 2 O’clock position.
At 6 O’clock is a flying tourbillon, and exposed at 9 O’clock is the governor for the watch’s remontoire, while a power reserve sits above that. At the moment, we are seeing press images of the watches with the ‘Oasis sand’ dial colour, but Grönefeld has four more dial choices coming soon.
Behind the dial and visible through the caseback is a masterpiece of watchmaking, the manually wound calibre G-09. Grönefeld called its new watch Quadrivium after the word’s use in classical scholarship, where arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music were considered the four foundations of a whole person. Here it refers to the four complications seen in the G-09. The tourbillon is obvious on the dial, and the large central seconds hand jumps by one second thanks to a deadbeat mechanism.
The power reserve is another complication, and the last is the remontoire. A remontoire in horology refers to a device that meters the energy from the mainspring barrel, a secondary spring builds the energy and releases it in precise bursts (every 7.5 seconds in the Quadrivium), providing more stable power to the escapement for more precise timekeeping. The governor on the dial spins every 7.5 seconds to indicate this feature.
The calibre G-09 has 473 parts and 49 jewels, with a 50-hour power reserve delivered by two co-axially arranged barrels connected in series. But who cares about all that? Just look at it. The graining, the anglage, the polishing, it’s second to none. That sums up the whole watch, really. I hope they’ll have one left over for me to look at in Geneva next year.
Until that point, the new 1941 Quadrivium will have to remain a dream. It’s an expensive one, though, with the price set at €280,000 in tantalum and €310,000 for platinum version with deliveries expected in 2027.
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