IW RATING SYSTEM LEGEND
Boutique
30-39: A great timepiece that may suffer from one or
more weak points weighing down the overall score.
40-49: A superlative
example of fine timekeeping.
BOVET
Récital 22 Grand Récital
Bovet’s new Récital 22 Grand Récital tourbillon
artfully miniaturizes our daily celestial dance.
Within a two-sided 46mm red gold or plati-
num watch Bovet beautifully represents the sun,
earth and moon with, respectively, a tourbillon,
a hand-painted hemispherical globe and
completely spherical half-luminescent orb.
First, we see the Sun as represented by a one-
minute tourbillon with five golden rays (the five
arms of the titanium carriage bridge) emanating
from central, beautifully engraved three-
dimensional depiction of our own fiery star.
Bovet has raised the tourbillon carriage itself
above the surface of the movement to empha-
size its importance. The tourbillon indicates the
seconds by a hand fixed to the carriage wheel
that then travels over a scaled twenty-second
sector.
The Recital 22’s most prominent feature is its
blue, white and green hand-painted hemispheri-
cal globe. Bovet’s artists add another dimension
to the image by adding luminescent material to
their paint, which allows the Earth to glow, as if
seen from space.
At the base of the globe, which of course
rotates once per day, you’ll see a graduated
scale with a polished titanium hand pointing out
the hour. Just to the sides of the globe Bovet
places a retrograde minutes display and a power
reserve indication. You’ll find a helpfully magni-
fied date at 7 o’clock that shows only one date
on one side of a very clever, patented, double-
sided date disk. The other side of the disk is
visible on the caseback.
To further enhance its astronomical depiction
of time, the Recital 22 almost directly mimics
lunar orbit by attaching the spherical moon to
a ring around the hemispherical Earth. Bovet
has filled the daytime half of the nicely cratered
Moon with a luminescent substance to make
gazing at it even more realistic.
While most of the primary astronomical
indications are displayed on the Récital 22’s dial-
side, the back also charms the eye, though with
a series of more literal depictions of time. These
include the aforementioned date disk, as well as
the full perpetual calendar, including hour, day,
month, and leap year indicators.
Bovet will release sixty examples of this Réci-
tal 22 in either red gold ($469,800) or platinum
($502,200), depending on each buyer’s request.
The manufacture will customize each watch to
indicate the owner’s home location in order to
optimally position the earth and sun.
26 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | SUMMER 2018