Hardly anyone today is aware of the fact that guilloché is the evolution of the "royal craft" known as ornamental turnery. Emperors, landgraves and nearly all the higher aristocracy of the 16th to 18th century were educated in this craft. Turnery epitomized more than any other craft the contemporary philosophy of everything revolving around a sovereign ruler. Using the royal lathes, watch artists developed beautiful guilloché machines in the 18th and 19th century, with which Breguet himself cut his unique, characteristic dials.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Tsar's court jeweller Fabergé truly perfected the art of guilloché. He used guilloché as a background for his famous enamel works, among them the epitome of this work, his highly elaborate Fabergé eggs. Thanks to the renaissance of mechanical watches, some of today's high-end watchmakers are once again adorning their products with hand-guilloché dials, unsurpassed in their elegant appearance.