The Jacob & Co. x Alec Monopoly Collaboration Timepiece Is Here!

The recently announced partnership between the internationally renowned contemporary graffiti artist, Alec Monopoly, and the luxury watch and jewelry brand, Jacob & Co., has resulted in the release of the first collaborative timepiece: The Astronomia Alec Monopoly.

This piece contains miniature pop characters and images that are staples of Monopoly’s artwork within the iconic Astronomia four-arm vertical movement and its exclusive complications.

The watch retails for $600,000 and is limited to nine pieces.

This artistic version of the Jacob & Co. Astronomia watch is a collaboration between Monopoly and Jacob Arabo, the founder of the luxury watch and jewelry brand “Inspired by the Impossible.” The two have been friends and admirers of each other’s work for several years.

“Alec is a young artist that started his career taking risks and not thinking twice about it,” Jacob Arabo says. “He acted as if he had nothing to lose and he continued to persist until he broke through to become world famous for his creativity and unique angle. I started out the same way by doing something different and unique and I persisted until I was able to break through.”

Monopoly says he met Jacob a few years ago while in St. Barth’s. They were introduced through a mutual friend.

“After our introduction, we ran into each other constantly from Miami to Monaco and everywhere in between,” Monopoly says. “I finally stepped up and acquired an Astronomia Tourbillon and immediately fell in love with the brand. There is just so much thought, time and talent put into each of these timepieces. This collaboration is a work of art within a work of art.”

The colorful animated watch has a black skylayer base housed in an 18K rose gold case with a curved sapphire crystal dome and four sapphire crystal windows on the side that provide a full view of the artistic and mechanical creations inside.

“I have been developing the characters I integrated into the watch for years now. You can see variations of reinterpretations of them in my paintings and sculptures. It’s so exciting to see them come to life on such a small but significant scale,” Monopoly says.

The four main sculptures are based on “The Monopoly Man” holding an ice cream cone with a melting pink dollar sign; an interpretation of “Scrooge McDuck,” holding “Money Bag” with gold coins piled at his feet; a multicolored dollar sign with multiple drawings of diamonds, dollar bills and the Jacob & Co. logo; and “Money Wings.”

“I love the juxtaposition of my youthful cartoon characters, brought to life with bright and vivid colors in a timeless watch with stunning complications,” Monopoly says. “It’s the perfect setting for my art and a watch made for true collectors to wear. My hope is this is a watch that gets passed down generations with the same passion and pride as a masterpiece original artwork.”

All the characters begin as drawings by Monopoly which then become CAD renderings that are perfectly sized to fit within the watch dial without impending the Astronomia movement and complications. They are then hand-sculpted, cast in gold and hand finished.

Monopoly paints the figures using acrylic paint in the bright animated colors that are his trademark. The artist normally works on surfaces that can range in size from large canvases to sides of buildings. He found painting at such a small scale to be challenging.

“This is by far the smallest scale ‘canvas’ I have ever painted. Every element, brushstroke and color choice needed to be carefully thought out and perfectly executed,” Monopoly says. “My street art murals are often free flowing and wild but given the intricacies and meticulous mechanics within these watches I needed to approach the creative process with much more precision and patience.”

Sharing space with the art sculptures is the iconic Astronomia movement with its four unique complications powered by the exclusive Jacob & Co. manual winding caliber JCAM10 with 365 components and a 60-hour power reserve. The exposed vertical movement has four extended arms, each containing a complication. They are:

* An hours and minutes time display with the Jacob & Co. patented differential gears system;

* A 1-carat spherical diamond featuring the exclusive Jacob Cut with 288 facets that performs a complete rotation every 60 seconds;

* A magnesium hand-lacquered globe of the Earth rotating every 60 seconds; and

* A double-axis tourbillon with the first rotation in 60 seconds and the second rotation in five minutes.

From the lime green hands of the time display to the expressive displays of the characters, the Astronomia Monopoly is a colorful, animated expression of contemporary art and mechanics that manages to define both the internationally renowned pop artist and the globally prominent luxury brand.

For Monopoly, it was also a “legendary collaboration.”

“Jacob’s watches are works of art so combining my art with his incredible watches is something that has never been done before. To have 3D sculptors inside a watch is just amazing and beautiful to me.”

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