Speake-Marin Art-Series Rhinoceros

For this first year, Speake-Marin develops a limited edition of 9 pieces in partnership with the London-based charity “Save the Rhino International”, an organisation working to ensure that all five species of rhinoceros thrive in the wild by protecting their habitat, reducing illegal trade, involving local communities and bringing experts together.

With this project, Speake-Marin contributes to the costs of protecting critically endangered rhinoceros at the Sumatra Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia, thanks to a CHF 3,000 gift per each timepiece sold.

In 2006, Speake-Marin started to design and develop the so called “Art-Series”, a collection of timepieces that is dedicated to craftsmanship. Speake-Marin includes in the Art-series different traditional techniques such as enamelling, hand-engraving, Maki-e (Japanese art of lacquer work).

Engraving is indeed part of Speake-Marin DNA and is corroborated within its Art-Series collection through beautiful watch dials: Skulls, Dragon or animals are magnified thanks to this technique. Speake-Marin uses both hand and chemical engraving methods, depending on the design complexity.

For this latest limited edition, the rhinoceros has been designed in our creation studio and sculpted by hand (more than 40 hours) to produce a special master stamp, which is then reproduced on each dial. The silver-plated sculpted rhinoceros is hand finished with an oxidising acid to reach this unique shade of grey.

To finish the dial, approximately 15 layers of black lacquer have been applied to reach the perfect consistency both in colour and finish.