Sun rays falling through an old forest

Maison OudbosHaute Horlogerie · Knysna

BOSGEES

The spirit of the old forest,
bound in rose gold.

  • 42mm
  • 312facets
  • 8pieces
Enter the forest

I · The calling

Some forests are older than the stories told about them. In the Knysna Oudbos, yellowwoods stood for eight hundred years while a white stag was said to walk between them, seen once a lifetime, by those already listening. We did not build a watch. We built a way to carry that silence.

II · Metamorphosis 01/05

Five layers.
One spirit.

  1. 01

    Faceted sapphire

    A crystal cut like a gem, not polished flat. Light enters through 96 planes and leaves as a shiver.

  2. 02

    The emerald dial

    312 facets cut into a single piece of Colombian emerald. Each one is angled by hand, so the dial is never the same colour twice.

  3. 03

    The stag relief

    Beneath the stone, a stag carved into solid rose gold over 61 hours. You only see him when the light is low.

  4. 04

    Calibre OB-08

    A hand-wound movement with 72 hours of power, its bridges shaped like yellowwood branches.

  5. 05

    The sealed caseback

    Engraved with the coordinates of the tree where the stag was last seen. The rest is between you and the forest.

III · The legend

Four signs
before the stag.

The foresters of Knysna said the white stag announced himself slowly. First the mist. Then the tracks. Then the ferns turning. Then a green light in the stone.

Tall evergreen trees in thick morning mist
I

The mist

It arrives without wind. The bezel's grey-gold finish is brushed in the direction mist moves through the trees.

A deer emerging from darkness
II

The stag

Seen in profile, never head-on. His antlers became the lugs, holding the strap the way branches hold light.

Green ferns on a black background
III

The fern

Ferns uncurl in a perfect spiral. The second hand follows that curve, ending in a single emerald tip.

A green and white crystal fragment
IV

The stone

The last sign is green light where there should be none. That is the dial, catching the forest's last ray.

IV · The facet

Move, and the stone answers.

Every facet is a tiny mirror pointed at a different part of the sky. Drag across the dial, or tilt your phone, and watch the light travel through all 312.

Drag across the stone

Moss-covered trees in an old forest

V · The making

Slow, by design.

0
facets cut by hand into one emerald
0h
to carve the stag in rose gold
0mo
from first sketch to finished piece
0
pieces, ever. Each one numbered.

VI · Configure

Choose your spirit.

Case
Stone

Rose gold · Emerald
Price on audience

Sunbeams through a misty forest

VII · Private audience

Meet the stag in person.

Audiences are held in our atelier at the edge of the Knysna forest, or in a private room in Cape Town. One guest at a time.