Métiers d'Art

The Best Aventurine Watches

Aventurine is the perfect choice for dials evoking the starry night sky.

By 

Kristen Shirley

 |  October 18, 2022

Blue aventurine dials are popular in watchmaking, especially in moon-phase or jewelry watches. Naturally, the deep blue color with sparkles is a poetic material to use in moon-phase watches, as it represents the starry night sky. Many brands have timepieces with beautiful moon phases that feature aventurine dials. For jewelry watches, brands love the sparkle within aventurine, which nicely complements glittering diamond indices or bezels. 

What Is Aventurine? 

Murano, an island near Venice, Italy, is famed for its intricate glassblowing. It’s also the birthplace of aventurine glass, a mesmerizing deep blue glass with flecks of gold or copper inside. As the story goes, this glass was created by chance — “all’avventura” in Italian — when an artisan accidentally spilled metal shavings into glass in the 15th century. (Other stories claim it was a secret technique created by glassmakers, who named it aventurine after avventura, the Italian word for adventure.) To make things slightly more confusing, in the 18th century, a natural quartz with a similar sparkling appearance was named in homage to Murano’s famous aventurine glass. This mineral is typically green but comes in a range of hues. Watches usually feature dials with aventurine glass, not the stone. 

Whatever its origin, aventurine glass was beloved for its sparkling inclusions, and it quickly became a sought-after material. In glassmaking, the classic color is colorless or golden, while in watchmaking, it’s a deep blue that evokes a night sky glittering with stars. 

The Best Luxury Watches With Aventurine Dials

H. Moser & Cie

H. Moser & Cie’s Concept watches are things of beauty. Devoid of logos and hour markers, the dial is on full display in all its beauty. The Endeavour Perpetual Moon showcases the allure of aventurine and a minimalist moon phase. Of course, it wouldn’t be an H. Moser timepiece without something special. The lunar cycle is close to a full month, but not quite. It measures 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds, so creating a precise moon phase is a challenge. Many watchmakers craft complications that only need to be adjusted once every 122 years, which is quite impressive.

But H. Moser takes it to the next level. This moon phase will deviate just one day every 1,027 years if the watch is kept wound. Thankfully, the in-house HMC 801 movement has a 168-hour power reserve, so it only needs to be wound once a week. It’s available in white and pink gold, each limited to 50 pieces.

Piaget 

The Limelight Gala is one of the most iconic women’s watches of all time. It debuted in the 1970s and became an instant sensation. The timepiece is instantly recognizable due to its unique case with asymmetrical, elongated lugs. The diamonds wrap around the bezel and extend along the side of the integrated 18K white gold Milanese mesh bracelet. While the bracelet might seem simple, it’s actually complex to produce. It takes eight artisans over 100 hours to craft a single bracelet. They transform gold threads into spirals, then weave them together. In total, each bracelet has 366 woven spirals. 

The 32mm Limelight Gala features a hypnotic aventurine glass dial with shimmering silver sparkles. The 18K white gold bezel is set with 62 brilliant-cut diamonds. Piaget is one of the few houses that are truly masters of both watches and jewelry, so it’s no surprise that this beautiful jewelry watch is powered by a mechanical movement. The automatic movement 501P1 was produced in house and has a 40-hour power reserve, despite measuring just 3.36mm in thickness. The Limelight Gala Aventurine is limited to 300 pieces.

Related: The Most Iconic Watches of All Time

Girard-Perregaux

The iconic Cat’s Eye collection from Girard-Perregaux has several magnificent aventurine watches. The Day and Night watch has a glittering aventurine dial with shield-shaped, diamond-set hour markers. At 6 o’clock, there’s a small seconds hand atop a day/night indicator. The golden disc is engraved with the sun and the moon, and it rotates every 12 hours. The automatic movement has a 46-hour power reserve. The 18K pink gold case is set with diamonds, adding even more sparkle to this beautiful watch. 

Bulgari

Bulgari adds another dimension to aventurine dials in the new Lvcea Intarsio Aventurine watches. Instead of a sleek, shimmering aventurine dial, its artisans crafted one using the Intarsio marquetry technique. They layered pieces of aventurine glass to create a three-dimensional dial with a swirling fan motif. The 33mm model has an automatic movement with a date window at 3 o’clock, while the 28mm version is time only and powered by a quartz movement. Both have diamond-set bezels, diamond hour markers, and complementary blue alligator straps. 

Van Cleef & Arpels

The magnificent Midnight Planétarium watch from Van Cleef & Arpels goes beyond the moon and showcases our solar system. The unique automatic movement has an aventurine dial representing space, a rose gold sun, and six planets indicated by gemstones: serpentine Mercury, chloromelanite Venus, turquoise Earth, red jasper Mars, blue agate Jupiter, and sugilite Saturn. Each planet is set on an aventurine disc that moves on its own at the same time as its rotation in real life, so the watch accurately depicts the planets around us. A shooting star moves around a 24-hour track to tell the time. It’s one of the most exceptional timepieces manufactured today. 

Parmigiani Fleurier

The elegant Tonda Metropolitaine with aventurine dial is a classic evening watch. It has a warm, 18K rose gold case decorated with diamonds circling the bezel. The aventurine dial is enhanced with rose gold skeletonized leaf-shape hands, delicate hour markers with only three numerals, and a small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock. The 36mm timepiece has an automatic movement with a 50-hour power reserve. 

Omega

Omega is the rare brand to work with aventurine stone, not the glass. The 29mm Constellation Co-axial Master Chronometer comes in three different colors of the natural aventurine stone: green, red, and blue. The watch is made in the brand’s proprietary 18K Sedna gold, and the bezel is engraved with Roman numerals. It also has diamond hour markers and a date aperture at 6 o’clock. The watch features the in-house Calibre 8701, which has a 50-hour power reserve. And finally, each watch is finished with a leather strap in a matching hue. 

Montblanc

The Montblanc Bohème Perpetual Calendar Limited Edition 88 isn’t just beautiful — it has an impressive, patented perpetual-calendar movement. The aventurine dial has three subdials that contain a wealth of information but are still readable and elegant. It has central hours and minutes hands, as well as a skeletonized hand for a second time zone. Months and leap year are at 3 o’clock. It only lists every other month, so it’s easier to read. In addition, the date and moon-phase indicator are located at 6 o’clock. This moon phase is ultraprecise and needs to be adjusted only once every 122 years.

Finally, at 9 o’clock there’s a subdial with day of the week and a day/night indicator. The watch is easy to set, too. It can move backward and forward — many perpetual calendars only go forward — by using the crown. The 18K rose gold watch is also set with 58 Top Wesselton diamonds on the bezel and is finished with a blue calf-leather strap. 

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