Roger Dubuis Sympathie Perpetual Calendar Biretrograde Wristwatch

Made circa 2000 by Roger Dubuis, 37mm diameter, 18K rose gold case, classic Sympathie case, white lacquer dial, gold alpha hands, month and leap year indicator at 12 o’clock, retrograde day at 9 o’clock, retrograde date at 3 o’clock, moonphase at 6 o’clock. It is housed with cal. RD 5772 self-wing caliber, 29 jewels, lever escapement, monometallic balance adjusted to 5 positions, stamped with Geneva seal on both dial and movement, it also earned a chronometric certification from the Besançon Observatory in France.

Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, perpetual calendar with retrograde day, retrograde date, month, leap year indicator and moonphase.

Background Story

Roger Dubuis, along with Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, founder of the revered complication specialist Agenhor, sought to renew its characteristic appearance by incorporating a pair of retrograde indications — one pointed out the day and the other the date. Together, they created the world’s first perpetual calendar module with a double retrograde display, which made its debut in the 1989 Harry Winston Bi-Retrograde Perpetual Calendar. When Roger Dubuis founded his eponymous brand in 1995, he incorporated this bi-retrograde perpetual calendar module — built atop a self-winding Longines L990 base movement — in a 37mm Sympathie case, which is the present example. The model was produced in several configurations, each in an extremely limited run of just 28 pieces.