As the curtain comes down on 2020 ? which, in addition to everything else that will make it memorable for better or worse, is the 175th anniversary of watchmaking in the German town of Glashütte ? A. Lange & Söhne has unveiled three new timepieces in commemoration of the milestone and of its founder’s pivotal role in it.

The modern A. Lange & Söhne was established in 1990, the result of a partnership between watch-industry entrepreneur Gunter Blümlein and Walter Lange, great-grandson of Ferdinand Adolph Lange, the Dresden-born watchmaker who founded his family watchmaking atelier in Glashütte in 1845. The foundation of the original Lange firm spurred the growth of an entire fine watchmaking industry in the German state of Saxony, and the Saxonia watch family ? one of the first contemporary collections introduced by A. Lange & Söhne, in 1994 ? pays tribute to this legacy with its classically proportioned, elegant designs and precision movements. The newest models hail from the Saxonia Thin and Saxonia Outsize Date sub-families.
The special 2020 edition of the Saxonia Thin is limited to 50 pieces in a white gold case measuring 40 mm in diameter and. as per its name, a svelte 6.2 mm thick. Its solid silver dial is coated with a “subtly shimmering” black gold flux whose tiny spangles sparkle on its deep black surface. The production process for gold flux, a type of glass with copper constituents, was discovered in Venice in the...