A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Perpetual Tourbillon Handwerkskunst 720.048

Lange 1 Perpetual Tourbillon Handwerkskunst — 720.048

Handwerkskunst is A. Lange & Söhne's answer to a simple question. What happens when a manufacture already capable of building a fully integrated perpetual calendar tourbillon on the unusually challenging Lange 1 Canvas decides that the engineering alone is not enough? The Handwerkskunst collection exists to answer exactly that, taking a caliber the brand has already mastered and handing it over to the artisans, letting hand craft push the piece somewhere extreme. Reference 720.048 is the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon's turn under that lens, introduced in 2014 and limited to just 15 pieces.

Where the standard 720.025 wears an argenté dial and the case metal alone marks it out, the Handwerkskunst version replaces the entire face. The dial is solid white gold, entirely hand engraved, with the surface split between raised relief motifs and a technique called tremblage. Tremblage is a form of engraving where the surface is struck with a fine burin thousands of times over, each strike leaving a tiny facet that scatters light rather than reflecting it evenly. The result is a granular, almost velvet-like ground against which the polished relief work sits in sharp contrast, and it is this contrast, more than any single motif, that gives the dial its baroque, almost sculptural depth. Tilt the watch under a light and the dial seems to shift and breathe in a way no printed or stamped dial ever could.

Even the smallest details were given the same attention. The numerals of the outsize date, normally left plain, are painted by hand in blue, a quiet flash of color against the white gold and one of the few printed elements Lange allowed onto an otherwise entirely hand-worked face. The hands are rhodiumed gold, chosen specifically to hold their own against the intricacy behind them rather than compete with it.

Underneath all of this ornamentation sits the caliber L082.1, the same fully integrated perpetual calendar movement built specifically for this watch rather than assembled as a module bolted onto an existing base. Its 624 parts drive an outsize date, day and night indication, moon phase, leap year display and a stop-seconds tourbillon, all instantaneously switching at midnight. The case measures a compact 41.9mm by 12.2mm in platinum, beats at 21,600 vibrations per hour, and offers 50 hours of power reserve. It is worth sitting with the idea for a moment: a manufacture spends years engineering a complication most brands would call a career-defining achievement on its own, and then hands the result to an engraver to spend weeks turning it into something closer to a baroque relic than a modern watch.

This example is in like-new condition and comes complete with its original box and certificate. Sold at The Selection, at Langepedia.com in September 2026.