Urushi Series MAKI-E “FIVE WINDOWS Mid ~Nagare Sakura” Leather model [VM07-CBKMA7-SSD]

Nagare Sakura appears twice in the MINASE Urushi Series as two separate FIVE WINDOWS Mid references. This is the second, VM07-CBKMA7-SSD, and because every dial is drawn individually it is a fresh reading of the motif rather than a copy of the first.

The JAPAN ART COLLECTION is where MINASE keeps its decorated dials. The technique here is maki-e, literally a sprinkled picture: the design is painted in lacquer on a brass base and dusted with metal powder before it sets, then buried under further lacquer and polished back until it resurfaces with depth behind it. Several months of work, all of it by hand, by a master urushi artisan.

The subject is blossoms carried on moving air, their trajectories drawn as long unbroken strokes across the black lacquer field. The FIVE WINDOWS Mid case holds it in stainless steel, 32 mm wide, 40.3 mm long, 11.6 mm thick with the sapphire. Count the windows and you find the front crystal, the panes in the case sides and the sapphire display back, which means the lacquer is never sitting in flat, single-source light. Inside, the self-winding KT8001 calibre on a Swiss ETA 2671 / Sellita SW100 base, finished by MINASE, with a date. Black leather strap, 5 atm.

MINASE builds essentially to order, so a dial like this arrives after a wait rather than off a shelf.

Perfect for: buyers of one-of-a-kind hand-painted dials, small automatic dress watches, Japanese maki-e collectors.