Mokume gane is known in the West mostly as a technique for creating
imitation Rado watches
Mokume gane is known in the West mostly as a technique for creating rings and pendants with more or less two-dimensional surfaces. Kees Engelbarts is not only the first to apply mokume to wristwatches, but he is also the first to create a personal engraving style uniquely suited to the material itself. “I often let myself be led by the material at hand, by the hidden colors of the layers of metal. If I see a vein of red coming out of the depth, I can intuitively follow it to accentuate the color of a tongue, the eyes or other parts of the dragon’s physique. Of course, I do have a basic plan in my mind of how I want each dragon’s character to come out, but in the end, the mokume itself also takes on a life of its own and tells me what should happen!”
In the first unique mokume dragon watch made for Masao Mishima even the hands were created from small slips of mokume, which were twisted and then rolled again, then engraved, a highly delicate operation that makes them appear to swirl fantastically, as if in actual flame. All this work means each watch is not only unique in character and expression but also a miniature work of art that you can’t stop looking at and admiring.
With each glimpse, some other detail catches your attention. For this reason, the individually handmade cases, with their elegant, classical form, were chosen to act as complementary counterfoils to the dial’s intricacy. Looking at these watches, you will dreamily forget that you’re viewing a world contained within a dial of only 29mm in diameter!
Of course, once you’ve treated the dial side with this kind of microscopic attention, then the movement itself will invariably look like a poor relative. So naturally, the movement of the watch screamed for attention, and Kees obliged. “I was looking at the movement, thinking about how beautiful it is mechanically—I use new old stock Universal caliber 66 with a microrotor—but how much better it would look if also in mokume.”
Mokume does not lend itself directly for movement manufacture, so Kees decided to literally ‘clothe’the movement with mokume. The results are fantastic to see.“Each piece of mokume, however small, is fastened with small posts to each bridge, block and plate of the visible side of the movement, including the rotor itself. It’s real microscopic puzzle work. The mokume patterns for the movement are coordinated with the dial’s coloring and features.”
When you watch Kees, who is tall, bent over and peering through the microscope lens, he invokes the image of a friendly giant building a small stadium for an ant farm. The work on the dial alone takes several weeks, add another several weeks for the abovementioned additional work on the movement and for final assembly. Whether mokume or not, each bridge and part must also receive anglage and attention to finish just as any other Swiss manufactured watch would.
Kees has a thorough knowledge of watchmaking, but his younger brother, Bart, a professional watchmaker who also lives in Geneva, takes responsibility for the assembly, adjustment, control and timing of all the Engelbarts watches. Both brothers are intensely proud of this family tradition and each other’s ability in this perfectly dovetailed enterprise. It also means that all clients of Engelbarts’ are getting the best of both worlds: original design based on centuries-old techniques, combined with new movements that have become collectors’items, with two professionals from both disciplines behind them.
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