Krayon's $178,000 Anywhere Magnolia paints sunrise and sunset with hand-fallen petals

Krayon has unveiled the Anywhere Magnolia, a 15-piece limited edition that takes the independent watchmaker's sunrise and sunset complication and clothes it in a hand-painted onyx dial. The Neuchâtel-based studio, led by founder Rémi Maillat, priced the watch at CHF 178,000 in a 39mm platinum case.

The dial

The dial starts from a deep black slab of onyx, and on top of it an artist has painted a drift of falling magnolia blossoms. Because each of the 15 dials is painted individually, no two share the same arrangement of petals. The result is a black-and-white execution Krayon describes as one of serious technique with a heavy dose of floral levity.

Two of the petals are not decorative but functional. A petal pointing upward on the left of the dial indicates sunrise, while a downward-facing petal on the right marks sunset. As the date and month change, the two petals travel around the dial, tracing the shifting daylight through the course of a year.

The spacing between the two petals is itself a readout. The sector between them represents the length of daylight, and a 24-hour scale on the rehaut gives the indications a reference. A small sun rendered in a soft, sandblasted finish circles the dial through the day to show the time on that 24-hour display.

A date and month share a subdial at six o'clock. The inspiration is literally across the road: opposite Krayon's manufacture stands a magnolia tree that flowers for only a few weeks each spring, and after rain its petals drop, some clinging to the branches while others fall toward the ground.

Look closely and three individual petals arrange themselves into a letter Y, a nod to Krayon's logo and its recurring design motif. The dial otherwise carries no prominent branding, leaving the miniature painting and the moving petals as the watch's entire visual statement on the front.

The complication

The complication itself is the Anywhere, first built to show not merely the time and date but the sunrise and sunset at a location the owner chooses. Krayon frames the watch as more than an instrument for telling the time, connecting mechanical watchmaking to the rhythms of the Earth.

Powering it is the manually wound caliber C030, an in-house movement measuring just 5mm thick and assembled from 432 components. It runs at 3 Hz, or 21,600 vibrations per hour, and delivers a 72-hour power reserve across its 35.4mm diameter, with 55 jewels and no chronometer certification.

The movement's architecture is the piece that makes the adjustment possible. A watchmaker can set the system to compute accurate sunrise and sunset times for any specified location, and the back of the watch remains, as ever with Krayon, a showcase of that patented functional structure.

The case is platinum and 9.5mm thick, fitted to a black hand-stitched alligator leather strap closed with a platinum pin buckle. Water resistance is 30 meters. There are no indexes and no lume, so nothing on the dial competes with the painted scene.

The Métiers d'Art line

The Magnolia is the latest in a line of Métiers d'Art experiments through which Krayon has explored decorative traditions. The series began with a unique Anywhere for Only Watch 2021, which carried a miniature-painted interpretation of Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise on the dial.

In 2022 came the Anywhere Métiers d'Art Azur, a limited edition using miniature painting and enamel work to build a dial in multiple shades of blue. A later Only Watch piece reimagined Théo van Rysselberghe through pointillism, while the Anywhere Arborea drew its atmosphere from Henri Rousseau's The Virgin Forest at Sunset.

More recently the Parhelion moved the complication into gem-setting, an absolutely gemset interpretation inspired by a rare atmospheric light phenomenon. Across all of them, Krayon has treated the decorative technique as integral to how each watch conveys its relationship with light, nature and time.

Krayon keeps a deliberately small catalog, essentially three models, all complicated and distinct thanks to Maillat's rather innovative mechanical calibers. That focus has left room for play, between limited editions and unique pieces, from a PAC-MAN reference to the fully gemset Parhelion shown earlier this year.

The Magnolia shows the brand's range outside its standard collection of more conventional designs. From a distance it reads as discreet, with none of the Parhelion's gemstone fire, but up close the pairing of miniature painting with a stone dial gives the sunrise and sunset complication its full artistic weight.

For the 15 collectors who secure one, the mix lands as an eye-catching balance of serious watchmaking and fun on the wrist. Price is on request in Krayon's own materials, though the public figure is CHF 178,000, and details are at the brand's site.

Krayon has not named a release date beyond the launch itself, and with only 15 pieces the allocation is likely to be spoken for quickly. More information, including ordering, is available through krayon.ch.