A lange & Söhne is celebrating the 20th birthday of its icon Lange 1 with a limited special edition.

The Lange 1 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst features a one-minute tourbillon with stop seconds, black enamelled dial and artisanal finishes, enclosed by a 38.5-m platinum case.

Commemorating the anniversary of a Lange 1 Tourbillon, which became the style-defining ambassador of A Lange & Söhne, it is being presented in an edition limited to 20 watches.

The special 20-watch edition bears the epithet “Handwerkskunst” and its hallmarks include exquisite manifestations of craftsmanship in “probably unprecedented combinations” according to the manufacture.

The black enamelled main dial sets the perfect stage for the mirror-polished hour markers as well as the matching hands in rhodiumed gold. The tourbillon cock, finished with the challenging specular polishing technique, is one of the key style elements of this watch. The black solid-silver subsidiary dial for the seconds is slightly recessed into the main dial. The contour of the aperture for the tourbillon has meticulously polished chamfers. The numerals of the Lange outsize date are grey on a black background.

The lavish decorations of the calibre L961.3 manufacture movement deserve the attribute “Handwerkskunst” in every respect. The solarised three-quarter plate made of untreated German silver has generous cutouts that reveal the identically decorated twin mainspring barrel.

The tourbillon bridge, crown-wheel and intermediate-wheel cocks are elaborately engraved with a technique that sculpts the motifs out of the material. Seven screwed gold chatons as well as two diamond endstone bearings for the tourbillon constitute the finishing touches. The diamonds are traditional hallmarks that Ferdinand Adolph Lange once introduced to highlight the premium quality of his pocket watches.

In 2008, more than 200 years after the tourbillon was invented, A Lange & Söhne’s product developers succeeded for the first time in immobilising the balance wheel inside the rotating tourbillon cage. Finally, timepieces with tourbillons could be stopped and set with one-second accuracy. The patented stop-seconds mechanism is also integrated in the watch

A platinum case with a diameter of 38.5 m protects the artisan-crafted masterpiece.

This exclusive collector’s was unveiled in Dresden, Germany, on October 24, on the same date and at the same place when the first Lange new-era collection was presented 20 years ago.