This is the blue-on-blue grande sonnerie, and the difference from its sibling comes down to two elements that sound minor and are not: the inner bezel is blue lacquer rather than black, and the strap is blue rather than black. On a dial made of guilloche and flinque enamel that changes the entire watch, because a black inner bezel frames the blue and holds it in, while a blue one lets the colour continue past the edge of the dial and out across the wrist. The watch reads as a single blue object rather than as a blue dial in a white gold case. Underneath it carries a grande sonnerie, a petite sonnerie and a minute repeater on a carillon, which is the most demanding movement in the collection. The case is white gold at 41 mm across and 13.5 mm thick, and it is no longer part of the current collection.
The case measures 41 mm across and 13.5 mm thick in white gold, and keeping a striking watch of this complexity under fourteen millimetres is the engineering claim that matters. Chiming watches are normally thick, because the gongs, the striking train and the governor all need space, and a grande sonnerie demands more of each than a repeater does. White gold gives the case the density and finish a dress watch requires while remaining a workable medium for sound, and the Supersonnerie work exists specifically to make the chime carry outward rather than be absorbed by the case. The dial is blue guilloche and flinque enamel, and the two terms describe a sequence rather than two treatments. Guilloche is a pattern cut into the metal of the dial on a rose engine, so the texture is physically engraved. Flinque enamel is then fired over that cut surface as a translucent layer, so the engraving shows through the glass rather than being buried by it. It is among the oldest and least forgiving decorative techniques in watchmaking, and it is almost never attempted on a complicated watch, because a failed firing destroys the engraving beneath it as well as the enamel. The hands are white gold, and there are no applied hour markers, which leaves the enamel surface entirely uninterrupted. The inner bezel is blue lacquer. The strap is textured blue leather with a white gold folding clasp. Textured leather rather than alligator is a deliberate choice at this level, since alligator is the default above a certain price and departing from it is a decision. A textured calf surface is flatter and less demonstrative than a scaled hide, which matters on a reference whose dial already carries a hand-engraved pattern beneath fired enamel. Matching the strap to the dial rather than neutralising it in black is what completes the single-colour reading, and it is the harder execution, since a dyed leather has to hold against translucent enamel over engraving.
The function set is a grande sonnerie, a petite sonnerie and a minute repeater, with hours, minutes and small seconds. The three modes are selectable and behave differently. Grande sonnerie strikes the hours and the quarters automatically as they pass, which is why the movement has to carry enough stored energy to run a striking train all day alongside the timekeeping. Petite sonnerie strikes the hours only, which is quieter and far less demanding. The minute repeater then chimes the exact time on demand, sounding hours, quarters and remaining minutes. A carillon means the striking runs on more than the usual two gongs, allowing a fuller and more musical sequence than the two-note pattern a conventional repeater produces. There is no date and no further complication, because there is neither room nor reason for one.
Within Audemars Piguet's structure Code 11.59 was introduced as a third pillar alongside the Royal Oak and the Offshore and is the only one of the three not built around an octagonal bezel and an integrated bracelet. Within the line the 26397 grande sonneries sit at the absolute top, above the 26395 repeaters, the 26396 tourbillons and the 26394 perpetual calendars. That a collection launched as a design statement now carries a grande sonnerie is the most substantial answer available to the criticism it received at introduction. Its immediate sibling uses a black inner bezel and a black strap with the identical dial, and the pair demonstrates how completely two peripheral colour decisions can change a watch that is otherwise the same object.
This reference suits a collector who wants the most complicated watch made and wants it to commit to a colour rather than hide behind neutral framing. The all-blue treatment is the bolder of the two versions and the one that will read as a blue watch from any distance, where the black-framed version reads as a white gold watch with a blue dial. The guilloche and flinque enamel is the second reason to want it, being a technique reserved for the most serious pieces and one that cannot be repaired if it fails. Now that the reference has left the catalogue the production is closed, and grande sonneries are made in numbers so small that any specific configuration is effectively unique in the market. The buyer is someone for whom the movement was never in question and the dial decided it.
