Six grounds on this reference are set with diamonds and they divide into two treatments, with one ground appearing on both sides. Aubergine, chocolate and slate receive the oversized VI at six; chocolate, rose, silver and white mother-of-pearl receive an even ring of settings with no numeral among them. Chocolate is the only ground offered either way, which makes it the one place on this watch where the treatment is a decision rather than something the ground arrives with. Rose is not on that list. This variant is the ring it is given, in a 31 mm case of steel and Everose gold under a fluted bezel, on an Oyster bracelet.
A rose ground set with diamonds is the palest surface the collection sets, and that governs how the stones behave on it. On a dark dial a diamond reads at full strength from any angle because the ground gives nothing back; on rose the settings and the surface sit close in value, so the stones appear and recede as the light moves and the dial has two distinct states rather than one. Under directional light it is a set dial and under diffuse light it is very nearly a plain one. That variability is the reason the ground receives no numeral: a fixed gold element would hold its position through both states and break the effect, where a ring of settings simply fades with the surface it sits in. The Everose of this construction is confined to the fluted bezel, since fluting is never cut into steel, and the case sides, lugs and bracelet are steel. There is a further consequence to a dial that changes state with the light, which is that it behaves differently indoors than out and differently again under a lamp. A dark set dial is fixed in appearance and a buyer knows from one viewing what they are getting; this one has to be seen in more than one condition before it can be judged at all. Owners tend to describe it as two watches rather than one, and the description is closer to accurate than any single photograph could be, since an image fixes a lighting condition and the ground has several.
The plate is pierced at each hour position and nowhere else, with no second depth of fixing, so it retains more rigidity than the dials carrying the enlarged numeral on this same reference. On a pale ground that matters more than on a dark one, since an even surface shows any deviation beneath it as a change in tone rather than as a shadow. Behind the dial the movement is built specifically to the 31 mm case, self-winding, holding close to 55 hours away from the wrist where the 36 mm references reach roughly 70, with barrel volume accounting for the whole of the difference. The date sits at three beneath its magnifying lens. The aperture is also more conspicuous on this ground than on the dark ones. A window cut into a pale even surface reads as a genuine break in the field, where on chocolate or slate it recedes into what surrounds it, so the date is among the more prominent features of a rose dial rather than one of the quieter ones. Rolex sizes it tightly and lets the magnifying lens carry the legibility a wider opening would otherwise have to supply, which is an accommodation the pale grounds across the range all receive. The hands follow the same reasoning, being gold to match the settings rather than contrasting with the ground, so nothing on the dial introduces a second material. On a surface this quiet a contrasting hand would be the only fixed dark element and would draw the eye continuously as it swept, which is the one thing the arrangement is built to avoid.
Rose is locked to Everose in every form and reaches three case sizes, set at 28, 31 and 36 mm and unset at 28 and 31 alone. Chocolate, locked to the same metal and offered on these same references, reaches seven. Two grounds under an identical metal restriction, described in the same terms, and one covers more than twice the range of the other. A buyer who reads a metal lock as implying a comparable footprint will be wrong about one of them, and the listings give no indication which. That is the practical case for reading a ground across sizes before settling on it. A metal restriction is visible in any single listing and a size range is not, so the two facts arrive at very different moments in a purchase, and the one that matters more for anyone expecting to buy again is the one the catalogue withholds. Rose is one of two grounds at this reference offered both plain and set, and its set version takes diamond hour markers in gold settings, the treatment chocolate, silver and mother-of-pearl also carry. The other arrangement here, a large Roman six with eleven stones, appears on aubergine, chocolate and slate, so two treatments cover every set dial the reference builds.
The argument for this configuration is that it is the gentlest set dial the collection makes. Nothing about it is emphatic: the ground is pale and warm, the settings mark the hours without organizing them, the Everose is confined to a single band at the bezel and the Oyster contributes nothing at all. Collectors who choose it usually want the fact of a set dial without any of the brightness that normally accompanies one, and are content that the watch will read as plain in half the conditions it is worn in. Among the arrangements offered here it is the one that recedes furthest. For a buyer who wants stones on the dial and no announcement of them, that is the whole of the recommendation, and no other ground on this reference manages it. Collectors who arrive at it have usually looked at the darker set dials first, found them more emphatic than they wanted, and worked back to the one arrangement that puts stones on a watch without changing what the watch is.
