Micromosaic Jewels That Tell the Time

Hidden in the center of a ruby and diamond gardenia or tucked among three diamond doves, a watch by the Italian brand Sicis is not so much a timepiece as a micromosaic jewel that tells the time.

Micromosaic is the signature of Sicis, which sets minute 0.1-millimeter tiles, or tesserae, directly onto dials to create, for example, a daisy with petals of diamond and pink sapphires or a whimsical Parisian landscape, complete with Eiffel Tower, in rubies, sapphires and colored diamonds.

The name Sicis is an acronym for a Latin phrase meaning “create your dream,” said Gioia Placuzzi, the business’s chief operating officer and creative director of its jewelry division.

The company was founded in 1987 by Ms. Placuzzi’s father, Leo, who still is its chief executive, to produce high-quality mosaics for private homes and luxury hotels, including many of the Las Vegas casinos created by the billionaire developer Steve Wynn.

In 2013, Mr. Placuzzi, who collects antique jewelry, expanded the business to include jewelry with micromosaic. Its first timepiece, which debuted at the 2015 Baselworld watch trade fair in Switzerland, was a 49-millimeter automatic model called the Mystery Watch because it had no hands. Instead, a diamond rotated to indicate the hour, and a display window on the face showed the minutes.

All the micromosaic work for Sicis, which also makes eyeglass frames, is done by 15 artisans at its headquarters in Ravenna, Italy. The completed dials are shipped to a Swiss watchmaker, which adds them to automatic or quartz-powered timepieces.

Ms. Placuzzi declined to identify the watchmaker, but said it was particularly skilled at working with micromosaic. “Ordinarily the space for a dial is one millimeter thick — very thin,” she explained. “For us this is not possible, because even if we use very thin layers, it will be 1.2 millimeters, which is for Swiss makers too much. So we had to find someone who was able to work with our dials and incorporate Swiss movement.”

The 18-karat gold watches, which range from 5,000 euros to 200,000 euros ($5,460 to $218,390), are sold at the brand’s stores in Milan, Paris, London and Hong Kong; through retailers such as Neiman Marcus; on the Sicis Jewels website; and on platforms such as 1stdibs.

Each handcrafted dial takes about 80 hours of work, using the same micromosaic techniques that Italian jewelers developed during the 18th century, Ms. Placuzzi said. But while those jewelers created tiles from glass, Sicis also incorporates pulverized precious and semiprecious stones, using silica to bind the mixture. The resulting paste is fired at 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,552 degrees Fahrenheit) and molded into large tiles. These are made molten again and pulled into thin strands, sliced into the tesserae, and set individually by hand.

The powders of various stones occasionally are blended to create new hues, as in the Blossom watch (€58,680), made of crushed morganite, pink sapphire, tourmaline and jade.

Nature, too, plays a role, Ms. Placuzzi said. The color variations inherent in natural stones — along with the effects of any alteration in the process such as a touch more silica, a slightly higher heat — make each piece distinctive.

Entire gems such as colored sapphires and diamonds may be set into the mosaic or bezel for a bit of flash. Creating the designs, Ms. Placuzzi said, is “like a combination of artisan work, craftsmanship and science.”

Most of the watches, including 13 by the interior designer Roger Thomas, have dials with a traditional time presentation. Others, however, incorporate a secret watch, the industry’s term for a dial that is hidden in some manner. And there are some, such as the Grand Tour series, in which a small watch face appears within the surface design.

It is such imagination, along with an exceptional use of color, that draws people to these timepieces, said Alice Leung, the manager of Carlson Watch Company, which runs the Sicis store in Hong Kong.

But for Ms. Placuzzi, the real joy of micromosaic is the ability to do what she called “pretty much anything” in terms of design — including reproducing photographs, she said. The house is now working on two bespoke watches for a Dubai couple that replicate a family portrait.

Much like the meaning of its name, Ms. Placuzzi said, “Sicis has always been a dream for me.”