Patek Philippe opens its seventh Watch Art Grand Exhibition in Milan on Friday 2 October. Until Sunday 18 October the Geneva house fills CityOval, the domed former Palazzo delle Scintille in the CityLife district, with some 500 timepieces and objects, in what it calls the largest exhibition the manufacture has ever organised. Under a dome 30 metres high there are rooms for the current collection, for the Patek Philippe Museum, for enamellers and engravers at work and for the chiming watches, including the Grandmaster Chime with its 20 complications. Entry is free, with booking recommended. The limited editions that Patek has promised for the occasion have not been revealed yet.
From the Rue du Rhône to the Museum, room by room
The exhibition site names six rooms. The Historic Building room shows the current collection and evokes the house’s headquarters on the Rue du Rhône in Geneva. The Patek Philippe Museum room brings loans from the Antique Collection, from the 16th to the early 19th century, which Patek describes as “some of the oldest watches in the world”, alongside the house’s own historic pieces. In the Rare Handcrafts room, artisans demonstrate enamelling, engraving and the other decorative crafts; the Manufacture room explains the stages of production and the movements; in the Watchmakers room, master watchmakers work in front of visitors. The “Master of Sound” room is given to the chiming watches, with the Grandmaster Chime and the Sky Moon Tourbillon. The release of December 2025 put the exhibition at “some 2540 square meters of the total 4,000 square meters” of the building, and a later text speaks of nearly 2,900. Either way it is larger than Tokyo in 2023, which covered 2,500 square metres.
Burano, Sicilian oranges and a king’s watch
Patek has made a Rare Handcrafts collection for Milan. Two pieces have been shown so far, both unique. The Burano pocket watch, reference 992/193J-001, in yellow gold, combines hand-executed cloisonné, flinqué and paillonné enamel with hand engraving; Italian Watch Spotter counted about 70 enamel colours. The Sicilian Oranges dome table clock, reference 20179M-001, is decorated in Grand Feu cloisonné enamel, with Palermo painted in miniature behind the fruit, according to the same publication. From the past, the press has listed some of the museum’s loans: the Calibre 89 with its 33 complications, the Star Caliber 2000 and a 1948 World Time reference 1415 HU. Two of them speak to Italy: an 1897 pocket watch of King Umberto I of Savoy, decorated with the royal arms in enamel and diamonds, and a gold watch from around 1830, made for the Italian market, with a champlevé enamel map of the north of the country.
“It’s not simply about showing watches. It’s about opening the doors to the world of Patek Philippe.” Thierry Stern, president of Patek Philippe, to Italian Watch Spotter, May 2026.
Why Milan
For the seventh Grand Exhibition, the release says, Patek has chosen “one of its leading historic markets”, and it is the first in Italy. Thierry Stern, the company’s president, gave his reasons in May: “It’s central, international, elegant, and there is a deep culture of watchmaking passion in Italy.” In an interview with Gentleman, reported by MF on 30 September, he recalled a line of his father’s: when Patek launches a new model and Italy welcomes it, it will be appreciated everywhere. The house has had its Italian subsidiary in Milan since 1999, Stern said in the same interview, and he has promised that some Rare Handcrafts and special editions will be reserved for the Italian market. “It’s a matter of respect.”
A sports palace from 1923
The building is part of the show. CityOval opened in 1923 as a Palazzetto dello Sport, designed by the architect Paolo Vietti Violi, and its dome rises 30 metres over an arena of 4,000 square metres; CityLife restored it in 2017. In 1946 it hosted La Scala’s theatre season while the opera house was being rebuilt, according to Il Sole 24 Ore. Around it stands CityLife, the district of towers by Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind. For lunch or dinner in the city, see our guide to the best restaurants in Milan.
Seven exhibitions since Dubai
The Grand Exhibitions began in Dubai in January 2012, with 400 exhibits and 3,500 visitors. Munich followed in October 2013, with 474 pieces and 22,000 visitors, then London in 2015 at the Saatchi Gallery, with 400 pieces and 42,500 visitors, and New York in July 2017 at Cipriani 42nd Street, with 450 timepieces and 27,500 visitors. Singapore came in October 2019 at the Marina Bay Sands Theater, with 467 timepieces and 68,000 visitors, and Tokyo in June 2023, with nearly 500 timepieces, more than 60,000 guests and the debut of six limited editions. Milan is the first edition in Italy and, by Patek’s own account, the largest. Milan’s luxury houses have had a busy autumn, from the opening of Prada Galleria in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II to the shows of Fashion Week.
The Luxury.it perspective
Watch Art is Patek Philippe’s argument that a watch is a cultural object as much as a product, and Milan is a good city in which to make it: a capital of design and fashion, in a country the house calls a market of connoisseurs. The free entry is the point. For two weeks, anyone can see a Grandmaster Chime, a museum piece from the 16th century and an enameller at work without a sales appointment. For collectors, the news will come with the limited editions Patek has promised, some of them reserved for Italy. For everyone else, the advice is to book a slot, choose a weekday morning and leave time for the Rare Handcrafts room, where the work is done in front of visitors.
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