Bovet Récital 31

The perpetual calendar is one of watchmaking’s great acts of stubborn intelligence: a cluster of wheels and levers trained to understand 30 days, 31 days and leap years, only losing the plot when the Gregorian calendar itself misbehaves in 2100. In the new Bovet Récital 31, that old brain receives a more approachable body.

Bovet’s astronomical pieces have long treated time as a small theatre of planets, moons and measured rotations. The Récital 22 Grand Récital won the Aiguille d’Or at the GPHG in 2018, while the Récital 20 Astérium also placed the maison firmly in the calendar-and-astronomy conversation. The Récital 31 is less operatic than those grand complications, but in some ways, more persuasive because it focuses the drama.

At 44mm, the Dimier case is substantial, especially under a box sapphire crystal, yet the proposition works. The watch is available in titanium or 18kt red gold, with rubber straps matching the dial colour, which gives this highly decorated object a more relaxed, modern rhythm on the wrist.

The most convincing idea is also the most practical: the corrector pushers for the perpetual calendar and moon phase are labelled and engraved on the case. This sounds almost too simple to celebrate, until you remember how many high complications require a manual, a stylus and a quiet room before anyone dares touch them. Here, the intimidation is reduced without dumbing down the mechanics.

Inside, the new manufacture movement contains 469 components, combining a perpetual calendar, retrograde date and spherical moon phase. The movement is hand-finished and hand-engraved, with a new “étoiles carrées” motif developed for the Récital 31 and 32. The engraving alone takes more than 15 hours in-house.

With the Récital 31, BOVET has taken one of watchmaking’s most cerebral complications and injected it with a good does of common sense.

Author: Lina Ress

If you are a fan of high complication watches, you may also like the new MB&F LM Perpetual Chromatic Editions, the new Roger Dubuis Excalibur Moonlight, and the Girard-Perregaux Minute Repeater Flying Bridges.