Roger Dubuis has closed its Knights of the Round Table Merlin trilogy with the Metamorph Merlin, a 45mm pink gold watch that does something the two preceding chapters did not attempt: it moves the storytelling off the dial and onto the case itself. Limited to 28 pieces, the watch pairs hand-engraved case flanks with a 57-block three-dimensional dial and the in-house automatic Calibre RD821, and in doing so forces a genuine rethink of how a case gets built when the case is no longer just a container for the movement.
Engraving the case middle: a new surface for watch case design
Earlier entries in the Merlin story, the Omniscient Merlin of 2024 and the Enchanter Merlin of 2025, confined their métiers d’art work to the dial. The Metamorph changes that. The right case flank carries a recessed area hand-engraved in micro-relief with Merlin shown in both human and animal form, referencing the wizard’s transformation into a white stag. The left flank is engraved with knights, including a central figure slaying a dragon. This is described as the first time the collection has extended hand engraving to the case, and it means the case middle now has to do double duty: it remains a structural, water-resistant housing (rated to 30m) while also serving as a canvas wrapped entirely in narrative relief work. Cutting a recessed engraving zone into a gold case wall without compromising the case’s sealing surfaces or its geometry against the bezel and caseback is not a trivial machining problem, and it explains why this treatment has waited until the trilogy’s final chapter to appear.
The crown and its guards pick up the same visual language, shaped like a sword hilt in reference to Excalibur, with the crown itself finished in a green glass ring that echoes the forest setting of the legend.
Case architecture and the sapphire crystal ring
The case measures 45mm across and 16.87mm thick, and that thickness is directly attributable to a protruding sapphire crystal ring positioned under the bezel. This ring, combined with a domed sapphire crystal carrying an anti-reflective coating, is what gives the watch its defining ergonomic and optical trait: a lateral view into the dial’s action. Light enters through the ring as well as from above, illuminating the three-dimensional scene and, notably, the backs of the twelve knights arranged around the dial’s perimeter. The bezel itself is notched, a detail that works with the crystal ring to frame these side apertures rather than closing the case off into a conventional flat-topped silhouette. An open caseback with its own sapphire crystal completes the construction, giving a view onto the movement finishing from the reverse.
Dial legibility inside a sculptural landscape
Reading time on a dial this dense is its own engineering question. The 57 individually crafted blocks that make up the scene are built from a mix of shotblasted glass with green CVD coating, polished pink gold, transparent glass with green CVD coating, plain transparent glass, and Crystalium flooring inlays also finished in green CVD. Each block sits at a different height, so the dial reads less as a flat surface and more as a stacked landscape, an effect the Maison ties to the dense forest where Merlin is said to have taken the form of a stag. Time itself is indicated by openworked pink gold hour and minute hands filled with green Super-LumiNova, matched to gold markers set into a green CVD-coated flange behind the ring of knights. Legibility here depends on that colour and material matching holding together against fifty-seven separate surfaces at varying heights and finishes, rather than on a conventional flat dial with printed or applied markers.
The twelve knights themselves stand 6mm tall, cast and hand-finished in solid pink gold, each carrying a distinct medieval weapon and posture; King Arthur, armed with Excalibur, is positioned at twelve o’clock. Each figure requires roughly three days of hand-finishing by a specialist engraver, covering sculpting, engraving, and the application of black patina to build contrast and depth into a piece smaller than a fingertip.
Movement architecture built around the dial, not the reverse
The automatic Calibre RD821 was engineered specifically to accommodate this three-dimensional dial architecture while keeping the case proportions consistent with the Maison’s established Excalibur design. The movement measures 25.9mm by 3.5mm, runs at 28,800vph (4Hz), and delivers a 48-hour power reserve through a golden skeletonised 360° rotor whose openwork pattern is inspired by stained-glass windows. Built from 172 components and 33 jewels, the calibre carries 14 distinct in-house finishes applied to meet the standard for the Poinçon de Genève hallmark, visible through the open caseback.
The Metamorph Merlin ships on a green calfskin strap with a pink gold triple-folding clasp, fitted via a quick-release system for interchangeability. As the concluding chapter of a trilogy that began with the Omniscient Merlin and continued through the Enchanter Merlin, it marks the point where Roger Dubuis extended its hexagonal dial language, first introduced with reference to the Giant’s Causeway basalt columns, into a full case-and-dial narrative object, with production capped at 28 pieces.
