Glossary/Dial Painter
Dial Painter
A dial painter is a craftsman or woman who specializes in the decoration and/or temporal division of watch and clock dials using a brush and a viscous liquid medium, such as coloured glass dust and oil in the case of enamelling
Only very large dials and specially crafted ones for the luxury watch sector are hand painted today. At one time, many, including enamelled ones, had handpainted hour and minute symbols. Incredible skill was shown on watch dials of the mid-ninteenth century and earlier, a magnifying glass being necessary to read the fine lettering of the signatures. Painters of tower clock dials sometimes employed gold leaf for the numerals; such a painter is rarely required to restore the same dial twice as gold leaf lasts more than a generation. Certain painters in the past specialized in decorative dials.