This is what a $1.5 million watch looks like.

From the outside, Greubel Forsey’s Art Piece 1 looks like a perfectly lovely, high-end timepiece. And it is. But to see the real artistry, you must look beyond the platinum case, 72-hour reserve and 30-degree double tourbillon. Hidden away inside the watch is a sculpture so tiny you can only see it through a microscope.

In the mid 2000s, Swiss watchmakers Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey came across Willard Wigan’s work on the internet. They were instantly fascinated. The British artist holds the record for creating the world’s smallest sculpture—a gold motorbike that fits inside a strand of facial hair. They asked Wigan to collaborate on a series that would house one of his micro-sculptures within the timepieces. It was a great idea; after all, how hard could it be to combine two highly-complex processes to make a wearable piece of art?

Pretty damn hard, it turns out.

Building a mechanical watch is a feat of remarkable craftsmanship in its own right, but inserting a sculpture smaller than the head of a needle brings a whole new set of complications. For starters, seeing the art. It’s easy enough to build a mini-platform and add a micro-sculpture, but viewing Wigan’s work requires peering through the lens of a powerful microscope.

>Wigan uses his pulse as a little jackhammer, using the gentle pulse to move material.

A watchmaker at work in Greubel Forsey's Swiss atelier.

In an installation setting, that’s not such a big deal. Light can be optimized, real microscopes used. That obviously is not an option in a watch. “We wanted the collector to be able to see the sculpture without having to carry around complex optical equipment,” says Forsey. “And of course, it was out of the question to include a battery to provide an artificial light.”

The watchmakers approached microscope makers, hoping to learn how they could make a tiny lens through which Wigan’s sculptures could be viewed. “The guy looked at us and said you’re just crazy—it’s impossible,” says Forsey. “He said, ‘We wouldn’t make a microscope 12 to 14 inches high if we didn’t need to make it 12 to 14 inches high.” Forsey set his atelier’s in-house physicist to work.

Making of Micro-Sculptures

Wigan himself comes from place of obstacles. Growing up in 1960s England, he was a poor student. “My teacher told me I was illiterate,” he says. “If you hear the word failure so many times, you accept it as a kid.” Unbeknownst to him or his teachers, the real issue was dyslexia, which followed him throughout school. He retreated into his imagination, and as a young child grew fascinated by ants. Wigan thought they were little people who could speak and think, and as such deserved the basics of a nice home, like chairs and tables. He began breaking off little pieces of razor blade and sculpting tiny tables and chairs out of splinters of wood. “I just started making little things and I got carried away and never stopped,” he says.

Wigan had a talent—a strange, uncommon talent. “My mother was so stunned by what she saw she told me if I make them smaller my name will get bigger,” he says. Wigan began crafting ever tinier works of art, eventually fitting a camel into the eye of a needle when he was in high school. Today, his smallest piece is the gold motorbike, which measures just 3 microns, which is smaller than a blood cell.

Each piece is a struggle. Early on, he realized going smaller required having complete control over his body. A tremble, shake, even a mistimed breath can destroy a piece. Wigan works between heartbeats—every second or two he makes a tiny cut or brush stroke—to ensure complete stillness. He makes his own tools, often out of unconventional materials. He’s fond of acupuncture needles, which he flattens and cuts in half to make tweezers. He’ll make paintbrushes by attaching the hair of a fly or the finest eyelash from his eye to a tiny piece of bamboo.

There are moments when even using a tool can be too much force. Instead, he’ll use his pulse as a little jackhammer, using it to gently nudge material.

When he’s working, Wigan holes up in his Birmingham studio. He’ll work in long stints, sometimes as long as 18 hours at a time, without distractions. “You become almost like the working dead,” he says. “It’s a nightmare when you’re making it, a dream when you finish it.”

After six years of research and development, Greubel Forsey was able to devise a way to see Wigan’s sculptures on such a small scale. The tiny optical system acts like a microscope for the wrist, magnifying the object inside the watch 23 times. It’s a polished, concave piece of glass that reflects natural light onto the sculpture from various angles, which allows the viewer to shift the focus and see the art even in dim light.

So far Wigan has sculpted tiny versions of a golden mask, a ship, a Coca-Cola bottle and a hummingbird for the watch brand. It takes him anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to build each sculpture. And it takes the atelier’s Unique Pieces Workshop—a group of five or so craftsman—nearly half a year to finish an Art Piece 1. Greubel Forsey only produces two art pieces a year, which helps to explain why these watches cost more than a house. Or as Wigan likes to explain the investment: “It’s like you’re wearing a little museum on your wrist.”

Wigan is exhibiting his work at Trinity House Gallery in New York City until October 3.