Maison

Luci di Nara: translating sculpture into a dial

October 7, 2026

A first for the Maison

For the first time in its history, Gerald Charles turns to contemporary art. The Maestro GC39 Mitoraj, a unique Grand Maestro Jumping Hour, marks the Maison’s first philanthropic commitment to the arts. It was created with Atelier Mitoraj and Galleria d’Arte Contini for TimeForArt, the benefit watch auction founded by Swiss Institute in New York to support contemporary art, which will be held at Phillips New York on 5 December 2026. The idea behind it is simple: artists supporting artists.

The language of a sculptor

Igor Mitoraj built one of the most recognizable sculptural languages of the last century. His work is rooted in the idealized beauty of Greco-Roman antiquity and deliberately disrupted by fragmentation, as a reflection on human fragility and our relationship with time. Luci di Nara captures this completely. A serene classical face coexists with its own incompleteness, and what is absent matters as much as what remains.

From monument to miniature

Rather than rendering Luci di Nara as a flat image, Gerald Charles chose the more demanding path of translation. It carried the volumes, serenity and deliberate incompleteness of a monumental sculpture into a component only a few centimeters wide, preserving Mitoraj’s expression without reducing it to illustration.

Beneath the surface

The watch is driven by the automatic in-house caliber GCA3900, with 265 components, 38 jewels, a frequency of 4 Hz and a 50-hour power reserve. The complication looks simple, but the mechanics behind it are demanding. For sixty minutes, the movement accumulates the energy needed to advance the hour disc in one near-instantaneous jump.

World's Tour

Before the gavel falls in New York, the Maestro GC39 Mitoraj will travel with the TimeForArt collection to four of the world’s great cities, offering collectors the chance to discover it in person.

London
Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October
Phillips, 30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX

Geneva
Wednesday 4 to Sunday 8 November
Hotel President Wilson, Quai Wilson 47, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland

Hong Kong
Monday 16 to Saturday 21 November
Phillips, G/F, WKCDA Tower, West Kowloon Cultural District, No. 8 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong

New York
Wednesday 2 to Friday 4 December
Phillips, 432 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022, USA

Auction

Saturday 5 December 2026, Phillips New York

Maison

Luci di Nara: translating sculpture into a dial

A first for the Maison

The language of a sculptor

From monument to miniature

Beneath the surface

World's Tour

Gerald Charles

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A first for the Maison

The language of a sculptor

From monument to miniature

Beneath the surface