MEASURE OF PRECISION

Few complications reveal the character of a watchmaking house as clearly as the split-seconds chronograph. In Patek Philippe's hands, it becomes a narrative thread linking a century of innovation. In the words that follow, we examine how that thread runs through Ref. 5370, the manufacture's contemporary benchmark rattrapante, and culminates in the multidimensional complexity of Ref. 5308, the quadruple complication

- SUMIT NAG

Among the many emblematic complications in haute horlogerie, the split-seconds chronograph has always held a heightened resonance.

It is all at once analytical and poetic: a mechanism created to separate moments that unfold too quickly for the eye, yet dependent on a delicacy of construction that borders on the improbable. Patek Philippe has long treated the split-seconds not as a technical novelty but as a demonstration of its deepes: convictions about watchmaking. The Geneva firm's finest rattrapante watches express a philosophy of clarity, restraint, and uncompromising craft. From the experimental wristwatch of 1923 to today's Ref. 5370 split- seconds chronograph and the new quadruple complication Ref. 5308, the rattrapante has become one of the clearest through- lines in the manufacture's story.

In the words that follow, we are about explore that very line. It begins with timepiece กว. 124.824, sometimes considered the first split-seconds chronograph made specifically for the wrist. It then traces the rise of the perpetual calendar chronograph with the Ref. 1518, and the parallel evolution of early split-seconds wristwatches such as the references 1436 and 1563. From there, it moves through the present era of in-house chronograph design, the ultra-thin CHR 27-525 PS, the patent-laden CH 29-535 PS family, and the way these ideas reach maturity in the Ref. 5370 (read the Cover Watch story), Ref. 5204, Ref. 5373 and the Ref. 5308. The aim is to tell the story of the split-seconds chronograph through key references.

1923: THE VERY FIRST WRIST-WORN RATTRAPANTE