According to the traditional Chinese calendar, 2025 is the Year of the Wooden Snake. To mark the occasion, Arnold & Son has created the Perpetual Moon 41.5 “Year of the Snake,” an eight-piece timepiece series in red gold that combines a manufacture caliber with a large astronomical moon and aventurine glass dial base.
The snake is delicately hand-engraved into a block of 18-karat rose gold and set against a blue aventurine glass dial. Its fine scales, forked tongue, and broad, flat head are depicted with realism. The large, mother-of-pearl moon, also rendered realistically with its shadows, is overlaid with Super-LumiNova. It illuminates an aventurine glass sky and is surrounded by the constellations of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia, which are also painted with luminescent material.
Manufactured in La Chaux-de-Fonds
The choice of these star patterns is a direct allusion to the history of marine chronometer-maker John Arnold. They have served as guiding lights since the dawn of time. Midway between them lies the Pole Star, which unerringly indicates the north. Here, the importance of the stars in determining periods, thresholds, and symbols in the Chinese zodiac calendar forms a unique point of cultural and graphic convergence.
18-Karat Rose Gold
On the case back, a secondary display of the phases of the moon allows fast and accurate adjustment of the complication. The manually-wound caliber that powers Perpetual Moon 41.5 Red Gold “Year of the Snake” tracks the age of the moon with exceptional accuracy. The total duration of a lunar cycle is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds. Arnold & Son has approached this so closely that it would take 122 years for this movement, if constantly wound up, to accumulate a 24-hour discrepancy between the display and astronomical reality.
Like all Arnold & Son’s movements, the A&S1512 caliber was entirely developed, produced, decorated, assembled, adjusted, and finished at the manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds. This caliber uses two barrels and offers an oscillation frequency of 3 Hz, giving a 90-hour power reserve. Price: CHF 57,200 incl. VAT ($63,100 USD).
