The F.P. Journe Chronomètre Optimum Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco 2022 is a unique piece. François-Paul Journe made it for the eighth edition of the Ball in Monaco, organised by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore in the presence of Prince Albert II, and it was sold at the evening's charity auction on October 28, 2022, after bidding between several collectors. The watch carries serial number 508-CO, a burgundy and ruthenium-plated guilloché silver dial with Chinese numerals made for this piece alone, and a movement engraved S.A.S Albert II 2022 Singapore. The proceeds went to the Foundation's work protecting the ocean in Asia, the theme of that year's ball. No other Chronomètre Optimum was made in this form.
The case is platinum, 40 mm in diameter and 9.5 mm tall, with the polished finish and slim profile of the standard Chronomètre Optimum, and it is fitted on a grey leather strap. Everything that makes the watch unique happens on the dial. Its base is a burgundy tone, paired with guilloché silver plated in ruthenium, which darkens the silver to a smoky grey and lets the engine-turned pattern read as texture rather than shine. Burgundy and grey is an unusual pairing for Journe, whose regular Chronomètre Optimum dials are gold and whitened silver, and it gives this piece a warmth that the platinum case alone would not. The hour numerals are Chinese characters, a nod to the Singapore audience the auction served and a detail no catalogue Optimum carries. The layout follows the reference: hours and minutes on an off-centre dial at three o'clock, small seconds at nine and a power reserve indicator at six. Near eleven o'clock an opening shows the wheel of the one-second remontoire, which moves in visible steps and is the only part of the mechanism on view from the front. The hands are blued steel and ivory-coloured steel, a softer combination than the blued hands of the standard watch, and they sit well against the burgundy ground.
The Chronomètre Optimum is Journe's summary of his chronometry research in a single wristwatch, and it brings together several components that he had never combined before. Two mainspring barrels work in parallel, delivering a steadier driving force and removing the sideways load a single barrel puts on the great wheel. That energy passes through a constant force remontoire, made here in titanium, which rewinds a small secondary spring once per second so the escapement receives the same push whether the watch is freshly wound or nearly run down. The escapement is Journe's patented High-Performance Bi-axial Escapement, a two-wheel direct impulse design inspired by the natural escapement of Abraham-Louis Breguet, with titanium wheels that run without oil and, unlike their eighteenth-century ancestors, start on their own. Because the remontoire releases once a second, it drives a natural dead-beat seconds hand, which jumps in full one-second steps and is shown on a large dial on the back of the movement, framed by a seconds circle screwed to the bridges. The rose gold movement is wound by hand and runs for about 70 hours, and on this piece its bridges carry the engraving S.A.S Albert II 2022 Singapore, visible through the sapphire caseback alongside the dead-beat seconds.
Journe designed the Chronomètre Optimum in 2001, and it was the first time he joined a dead-beat seconds to his constant force remontoire. Work on the Octa calibre, and then on the Sonnerie Souveraine, the Centigraphe Souverain and the Répétition Souveraine, kept it from production for more than a decade, and it finally reached the collection in 2012. The ideas it carried had meanwhile spread through his work, and the 2004 Tourbillon Souverain with dead-beat seconds grew directly out of it. The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, founded in 2006, has a Singapore branch that has financed more than two dozen environmental projects, and F.P. Journe has supported it with unique pieces at several editions of the ball. For the 2018 Ball in Monaco the brand donated a unique Chronographe Monopoussoir Rattrapante, the 2022 Chronomètre Optimum followed in the same spirit, and a Chronomètre à Résonance was made for the 2024 edition. Each is a single watch made for one evening, and together they form a short series of F.P. Journe pieces uniques tied to the Foundation. Within that series the Optimum is the most technically ambitious base, since it takes the most complex time-only watch in the collection and gives it a dial made for one owner.
The appeal of this watch rests on three things that cannot be repeated. It is a unique piece with a documented origin, made by F.P. Journe for a named charity event, sold at a public auction and recorded on the brand's own site with its serial number, 508-CO. Its dial exists nowhere else in the history of the Chronomètre Optimum: burgundy and ruthenium-plated guilloché silver with Chinese numerals and ivory-coloured hands. And beneath that dial is the Chronomètre Optimum itself, the reference F.P. Journe presents as the culmination of its chronometric research, with two barrels, a titanium remontoire, an oil-free bi-axial escapement and dead-beat seconds, all in a 40 mm platinum case. For a collector who follows Journe closely, the pieces uniques made for the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation are among the few ways to own a watch the brand made only once, and the engraving S.A.S Albert II 2022 Singapore on the movement ties this one permanently to the evening in Singapore that produced it.
