BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Henri Grandjean was a watchmaker from Le Locle, Switzerland, who lived from 1803 to 1879 and made pocket watches, chronometers, and more. He definitely deserves a deep dive beyond a passing mention in a news piece like this. If someone could invent a mechanical watch that reminds me to do a specific article at a specific time, that would be great. Anyway, the Henri Grandjean name was reborn at the beginning of 2026 with the Magician piece, notable for its triple-axis tourbillon that appears to have no connection to the rest of the movement. The maison has expanded quite a bit, and we’re now seeing two new sapphire crystal pieces sporting that same calibre added to the collection.
The new Magician Atrivm pieces come in two colourations: red sapphire crystal or green sapphire crystal, with dimensions of 45mm x 16mm and 30m of water resistance. The round shape of the cases is quite simple, not technical or overengineered, unlike so many watches with sapphire-crystal cases. I suspect that’s mostly down to the difficulty of producing evenly-coloured sapphire crystal, and the fact that most of the engineering work will have gone into the movement.
You can appreciate a lot of that engineering work from the dial side, with a colour-matched time disk made with Grand Feu enamel floating over the calibre 1831. The construction of the hand-wound calibre is architectural in its nature. Several elements stacked next to and on top of one another give a sense of depth and space. The time dial is quite large and legible; below it is a date wheel, which seems less legible, with only a white line on the spoke of the wheel there to point at the date. A day/night indicator is also included. To the left of that, standing proud of a coloured plate, sits the mysterious three-axis tourbillon. As with other “mysterious” tourbillons, sapphire disks are used to connect the tourbillon cage to the rest of the movement.
The three-axis tourbillon consists of three cages: the innermost, containing the balance wheel, rotates once every ten seconds and is made of magnesium; the second rotates once every 18 seconds and is made of titanium; and the outermost cage rotates once every minute and is made of a blend of titanium and stainless steel.
The idea is that all of those cages rotating in different directions should counteract the effects of gravity on the escapement, no matter the position the watch is in, something the traditional tourbillon doesn’t actually fix in a wristwatch. The calibre 1831 has a 40-hour power reserve and a 3Hz beat rate, and is made in-house by the maison, although what that means for servicing remains to be seen.
If you can afford one, though, you probably don’t care. We don’t have an exact price for either of these watches, but other versions of the Magician Atrivm have been priced at CHF 900,000, and they won’t be making them in a hurry.
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