In 1938, a young craftsman settled in Pergamon — an ancient city on the Aegean coast, known for centuries as a seat of art, scholarship and refinement. It was there that the Başaran family first touched a watch movement, first learned the language of time.

The Pergamon is Philippe Lichtman's founding reference. Its architecture is deliberate: a round case that echoes the great dress watches of the mid-twentieth century, a guilloché dial that catches light the way the Aegean catches the afternoon sun, and a movement finished entirely by hand.

It is not a complicated watch. It does not need to be. Its complication is time itself — measured with absolute precision, housed within an object of enduring beauty.

The Scheldt River has flowed through Antwerp for millennia — indifferent to the seasons, the centuries, the rise and fall of empires. It was beside this river that Mr. E. Başaran arrived in 1996, carrying with him nearly sixty years of family heritage in horology.

A perpetual calendar is among the most demanding complications in watchmaking. Its mechanism must account for months of varying length, for leap years, for the idiosyncrasies of the Gregorian calendar. Correctly set once, the Scheldt will display the accurate date until the year 2100.

The moon phase display — accurate to one day in 122 years — is rendered in deep blue enamel, a reference to the night sky over the Scheldt estuary as seen from the Antwerp waterfront.

The Antwerp Grande is not a watch that is purchased. It is a watch that is earned — by time, by patience, by an understanding of what it represents. Only twelve examples leave the atelier each year. Each is built over the course of fourteen months by a single master watchmaker.

The flying tourbillon — visible through the semi-skeleton dial at 6 o'clock — rotates once per minute, compensating for the effects of gravity on the escapement. It floats, unsupported by a bridge, in a cage of 18-karat white gold weighing less than 0.3 grams. Its construction requires 72 individually crafted components.

The minute repeater chimes the hours, quarter-hours, and minutes on demand — two cathedral gongs hand-tuned in the atelier. It is the most demanding complication in all of watchmaking. And it is the sound of three generations, finally speaking.