lot 13

Konstantin Chaykin

Virtue Vice Sketch

This watch was featured at the "Timepieces and Art: Konstantin Chaykin" auction

Starting bid CHF 100
Hammer price CHF 1 800
Total bids 27

Details

Dimensions: 320 x 240 mm

Two drawings

2020

Paper, pencil, watercolor

The artwork is paired with a unique NFT.

Lot essay

Two sketches of an enigmatic and witty watch in the style of the famous Wristmons Collection by Konstantin Chaykin. The idea for these timepieces appeared during the preparations for the Only Watch 2021 auction. The master came up with the concept of combining two emotions, "good" and "evil", on a single dial. Master planned to use the rotating curtain to trigger the change of expressions on the dial. The watch was symbolically named Virtue and Vice.

The master came up with the concept of combining two emotions, "good" and "evil", on a single dial.

Chaykin expressed this contradiction in his sketches. In the first one, you can see a rotating curtain on the left with an intricate ornament in the spirit of the British Arts & Crafts. The right part is a skeletonized movement with a round "eye" (a minute indicator). The master used the technique of grisaille to highlight a fragment of the movement in brass colored watercolor. The second sketch shows the left, "virtuous" part of the dial, hidden by the ornamentation.

Chaykin showed these sketches to the founder of Only Watch in November 2020. However, the idea was abandoned because of the difficulties that arose during at development stage. The movement could not be produced by the auction date. While working on these sketches, the master came up with another concept. A skeletonized dial and a retrograde indicator hidden in a "smile" shaped the famous Martian Tourbillon watch.

Phantom Timepieces

While creating a collection of watches, Konstantin Chaykin made numerous sketches, in which he, as an artist, tried to depict the timepieces he had conceived. The watchmaker has gathered these ideas into a special collection – the Phantom Watch series. 

The collection includes the inspirational sketches of watches created by Chaykin, the projects which can't be realized for some reasons. The master cherishes every thought he conceived, so he decided to give these inventions a chance on paper.

About the Author

Konstantin Chaykin is a famous watchmaker and inventor who has the greatest number of inventions and watch complications among his colleagues all around the world.

Moreover, Chaykin is also a great graphic artist. All of his timepieces and inventions began with sketches and drawings that he made in countless "moleskins". One may consider them a "chronicle" of his Manufacture. It is not surprising that it was Chaykin who created the world's first self-portrait watch, the Selfie Joker, the dial design of which reflects the features and traits of its creator.

In 2021, Chaykin created his first digital art project — the NFT-Joker. It represents the unstoppable time flow shaped as an ever-changing appearance of the Joker watch – 42,480 different computer images of the watch, changing minute by minute and marked by a unique emotion on the face-like dial.

The time has come to transfer the other Chaykin's artworks – paintings, watch and movements' sketches, blueprints – into the digital dimension.