janet lange lithographer

In many areas of luxury the end consumer is often met with the finished product with little idea of how that product was actually developed the way it was, nor why. Here A. Lange & Sohne provides a fascinating insight into how it approached three technical areas of watch*** and reveal how each of those paths evolved.The first of Lange's innovations for 2010 is harder gold (top). Chemically speaking, this novel "honey-coloured" gold is an 18-carat gold alloy which means it consists of 75 percent pure gold. Its colour lies midway between pink and white gold and is attribut-able to its copper and zinc content.The combination of a special thermal treatment with a slight admixture of man-ganese is responsible for its extraordi-nary hardness which registers between 300-320 HV on the Vickers scale. To put that in perspective, yellow gold's value lies between 135-150 HV meaning honey-coloured gold is more than twice as hard. The benefits to the watchmaker and the wearer are obvious, offering far improved scratch resistance and durability.Meanwhile another of Lange's discoveries for 2010 centres round its Zeitwerk timepiece (above) which boasts numerals that are obscured behind the dial for most of the day. To ensure the wearer can read the time in the dead of night, the numerals’ ability to absorb light had to be addressed.Lange's solution was to create a sapphire-crystal dial with a semi-transparent but UV-permeable coating. The light in the ultra-violet (UV) range from 250 to 430 nanometres is allowed to pass unhindered so the Superluminova numerals can be charged up with photonic energy even when obscured behind the dial. This allows them to glow for several hours at night despite not seeing sunlight in the traditional sense for much of the day.The final innovation likewise involves luminosity but is related to lunar discs rather than numerals. Lange's 1815 Moonphase is accurate to such a degree that it takes over a thousand years for the display to be off by one day relative to the moon's position. Maintaining this excellence, Lange wanted to develop a coating for the stars that would genuinely emulate the appearance of the night sky.The brand employed a group of scientists who pioneered a new process in the watch*** industry in which they apply extremely hard carbon films to the solid-gold lunar discs through physical vapour deposition �C known as PVD. This adjustment of the su***ce not only delivers the desired col-our hue but also very high wear resistance. The lunar discs are crisp and brilliant.

A very interesting success story, A. Lange & Sohne (A Lange & Sons) was created in 1845, in Germany, in a small town in Saxony, by a young entrepreneur, who transformed his family business into one of the most appreciated watch-*** powerhouses in the world. After the Second World War, in 1948, the brand's owners were expropriated by the Soviet administration, and A. Lange & Sohne ceased to exist until 1990 when, with the help of the prestigious Richemont group, the brand started again to produce timepieces extremely appreciated by the watch connoisseurs worldwide. A. Lange and Sohne Tourbograph Pour le Merite Picture Gallery Recently the renowned German watch manufacturer presented another remarkable diamond-set variation of the sophisticated Tourbograph Pour le Merite watch, an amazing timepiece that combines the accuracy of a split-seconds chronograph, the pure mechanical beauty of a tourbillon complication, with the constant torque delivery of the fusee-and-chain transmission and the functionality of the power reserve indicator. Beautifully sculpted in titanium, the glamorous Tourbograph Pour le Merite watch masterfully combines the watchmaker's artisanship with the jeweler's delicate art.This superb timepiece features a 41.2 mm, round titanium case set with 201 baguette-cut diamonds; the watch's bracelet was paved with the seductive glitter of 175 precious stones, all in all the watch features diamonds summing 40 carats. A close glimpse at the superb silhouette of the Tourbograph Pour le Merite watch reveals a meticulous attention to the purity of the finest detail touch, it features high-end diamond setting alongside the case' s flanks, bezel and lugs, as well as on the winding crown and chronograph push pieces.This luxurious object of horological art is animated by a true masterpiece of mechanical mastery, the extremely complex, hand-wound Calibre L903.0 movement executed in a close collaboration with Switzerland's most renowned complication specialist Renaud & Papi. The movement comprises 45 jewels, and over 1,000 individual parts, which demonstrate wonderful finishing manufactured according to the centenary tradition of the Saxon watchmaker. The sophisticated movement features a balance wheal that oscillates at a frequency of 21,600 beats per hour and ensures a 36-hours power reserve. The superb finish of the movement can be, moreover admired through an exhibition case back.The timepiece features an elegant silver dial, which displays the tourbillon complication, embellished with countless alluring details, through an aperture positioned at 6 o'clock; also, the watch ensures splits-seconds chronograph function that allows the watch's owner to track two independent elapsed time intervals.A true masterpiece of horological art, this fascinating one-of-a-kind edition for Dubail, created by A. Lange & Sohne comes for the mind-numbing price of to 1.2 million Euros.A. Lange and Sohne Tourbograph Pour le Merite, 9.0 out of 10 based on 3 ratings