Richard Mille Movement Speed Study, Original Painting

Richard Mille showed his first watch, the RM 001 Tourbillon, at Baselworld in 2001, and built his company on the idea of the watch as a racing machine for the wrist, with the movement left open to view and a tonneau case shaped to follow the wrist. The company works from Les Breuleux in the Swiss Jura, and its ties to motor racing run deep. Since 2021 it has been a partner of Ferrari, and the first watch of that partnership, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, was at 1.75 mm the thinnest mechanical watch in the world when it appeared.

Here the watch takes the place of the car in a speed study. The skeleton movement, its bridges, wheels and jewels drawn in fine detail, sits in the right half of the canvas, while the case and its fragments stream away to the left in long horizontal bands of grey, black and silver. RICHARD MILLE runs along the top of the case, with LIMITED EDITION and SWISS MADE legible below, and touches of violet mark the jewels. The palette is cool and metallic throughout. It is signed with the artist's circled monogram at lower right, beside what reads as '24. An original painting, one of one.