News · Henri Grandjean

Henri Grandjean pours its triple-axis tourbillon into red and green sapphire

The Atrivm gains two new coloured sapphire cases, each with a Grand Feu enamel dial fired to match, around a cage assembly that appears to be supported by nothing at all.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 25 August 2026

• Henri Grandjean has added red and green sapphire cases to its Atrivm line, references 50-01-HSR/RD and 50-01-HSG/GN, alongside the existing blue and white versions.
• Each carries a Grand Feu enamel dial fired to match its case, and a mysterious triple-axis tourbillon at nine o'clock whose three cages turn every 10, 18 and 60 seconds.
• Henri Grandjean publishes no price itself and shows the collection by appointment in Geneva, while Deployant and Monochrome both report CHF 990,000 excluding taxes.

Sapphire cases arrived in watchmaking as a flex and have mostly stayed one. Growing a block of corundum and then machining a watch case out of it is slow, wasteful work, which is why the technique lives almost exclusively at the top of the market. The results also tend to be colourless, as though transparency alone were the point. Henri Grandjean has now taken the idea somewhere considerably less restrained, with the Atrivm in red and green sapphire.

Two new colours, one existing architecture

Worth being precise about what has changed here, because the watch is not new. The Atrivm already existed in blue and white sapphire within the maison's Magician collection, and what Henri Grandjean has added are red and green cases, references 50-01-HSR/RD and 50-01-HSG/GN respectively, each with a Grand Feu enamel dial in a matching tone. The mechanics carry across unchanged, which means this is a colour exercise, and yet calling it that undersells how differently the watch reads.

Because the case is transparent, the colour is not a treatment sitting on top of the watch. It is the medium the whole thing is suspended in. Light enters through 45mm of red corundum and arrives at the movement already tinted, so the enamel dial, the matte grey tourbillon cages and the polished rhodium hands all pick up the same cast. The green does the same trick in a cooler register, and to my eye it is the harder one to bring off. Green sapphire tends towards bottle glass. This one has stayed closer to a traffic light seen through rain.

The tourbillon that appears to be holding itself up

At nine o'clock sits what Henri Grandjean calls a mysterious triple-axis tourbillon: three concentric cages rotating simultaneously, the first turning once every 10 seconds, the second every 18 and the third every 60. Mysterious, in this context, means the assembly has no visible bridge or support, so the cage looks as though it has been left floating in the middle of a hole in the movement.

Three axes is more than a tourbillon needs to do its notional job of averaging out gravity, and anybody who tells you a wristwatch requires this is selling something. What three axes genuinely deliver is a spectacle that never repeats, since the cages fall in and out of phase with one another. The ten second inner rotation is also fast enough to watch, so you are not checking back later and taking the change on faith.

Grand feu enamel, in the least likely place for it

The dial is Grand Feu enamel, fired to the tone of the case. The maison's own claim is that this is the first time enamel of that kind, a sapphire case and a Swiss hand-finished manufacture movement have appeared together in one watch. World firsts are a claim worth holding loosely, but the combination is genuinely unusual. Enamel is warm, deep and slightly irregular, while sapphire is cold and absolutely regular, so putting the two in one watch is a decision that could have gone very badly.

Look closely at the dial side and the mainplate on the tourbillon flank is itself finished in red Grand Feu enamel. That is a considerably harder job than an enamel dial, because a mainplate has holes and jewelled bearings in it, and enamel does not enjoy either. The time is read off an off-centred display with a central star-shaped date indicator, and a separate 24-hour wheel splits day from night rather than running them around one scale.

The numbers, and the one that will decide it for you

The case is 45mm across, 16mm tall and 45.80mm lug to lug, on a 22mm strap, and water resistance is 30 metres, which on a sapphire-cased watch means keep it away from the tap. That 16mm height is the figure to sit with, since a transparent case does nothing to hide it. The short 45.80mm lug to lug does more work than the diameter suggests, and stops the watch overhanging as much as you would fear.

Inside is an in-house hand-wound calibre of 218 components, running at 21,600 vibrations an hour on 29 jewels, with twin barrels giving roughly 42 hours. Bevels are polished by hand, the bridges carry Côtes de Genève, and the gear train is left visible. Forty-two hours is short by modern standards and entirely beside the point on a watch nobody is wearing to the office on Wednesday.

Henri Grandjean Atrivm Red Sapphire and Green Sapphire pricing and availability

Henri Grandjean publishes no price on its own site and shows the Magician collection by private appointment at its Geneva showroom. Deployant and Monochrome both report CHF 990,000 excluding taxes for each of the two, and Monochrome describes them as strictly limited without giving a piece count. The red sapphire is reference 50-01-HSR/RD and the green is 50-01-HSG/GN, joining the existing blue and white sapphire versions.