Urushi Series MAKI-E “SEVEN WINDOWS ~Yama-Sakura (Wild cherry blossoms)” Leather model [VM15-CBKMA4-SSD]

MINASE compares this dial to photographs of planets and satellites, which sounds odd until you look at it. The Urushi Series maki-e dial “SEVEN WINDOWS ~Yama-Sakura” draws wild mountain cherry blossoms at deliberately different sizes, so the eye reads distance where there is only lacquer.

Yama-zakura bloom on Japan's mountainsides each spring and are gone within days. Rendering them in urushi takes the opposite kind of time: the motif is painted in lacquer, dusted with gold and colored powders before it sets, then covered, dried and polished, again and again, for months. This is maki-e, and it anchors MINASE's JAPAN ART COLLECTION.

The SEVEN WINDOWS case suits a dial about depth. Its case-in-case construction puts an inner case, a three-dimensional dial and holography-like indices on a ring inside an outer shell, and light passing through the seven sapphire panels shifts the shading as the angle changes. Stainless steel, 37.4 mm wide, 46.5 mm tall, 13 mm thick including the crystal, about 89 g on its black leather strap. The self-winding calibre KT7002, built on a Swiss ETA 2892-A2 / Sellita SW300 base and finished by MINASE, carries the date, and the watch is rated to 5 atm.

Hand-made one at a time by a master urushi artisan, so the blossoms fall differently on every example.

Perfect for: mountain cherry blossom motifs, three-dimensional dial architecture, collectors of Japanese art watches.