The story of Rolex Cellini

Text: Andreas Johansson

With watches like the GMT Master, Explorer, Submariner, Daytona and Datejust, Rolex has above all become associated with sports watches. The Rolex Cellini was for a long time the brand's dress watch, in this article we take a closer look at why Rolex chose to invest in a dress model, some personal favourites from the model and why the Cellini collection never became a success. 

Exactly which year Rolex started producing the Cellini model, opinions are divided about, but a year that usually turns up in this context is 1968, regardless of that we can say with certainty that it was definitely sometime in on the 60s that the first model was released. The marketing manager at the time, Rene-Paul Jeanneret, is usually mentioned as the brain behind the idea that Rolex needed to develop its collection. This in connection when he presented his marketing idea that collectors ought to have more different models of Rolex watches and not just one. Then Rolex also needed to develop a dress model in order to be able to cover all the ”needs” that a potential watch collector could be imagined to have. When Rolex was to choose a name for its new dress collection, the name fell on Benvenuto Cellini.   

Who was Benvenuto Cellini?

The goldsmith and the sculpture Benvenuto Cellini was active in Rome and Florence in 16th century Italy and at a closer look at his artworks I understand that Rolex chose to name its dress model after him. Cellini grew up in Florence but eventually moved to Rome, where he soon became a recognised craftsman and made several different pieces of jewellery, vases and artworks. His craftsmanship was in demand not only by the city's elite, important people in the whole of Europe also wanted his craftsmanship. Among some of he most famous works are found among other things, a medal of the motif ”Leda and the Swan”, a bronze sculpture of ”Perseus with the Head of Medusa” and ”The Nymph of Fontainebleau”. Cellini did not, however, only have a life marked by luxury and glamour, he himself was involved in several scandals, among other things he was accused of murder. 

A varied collection

The fun thing about the Rolex Cellini series is that there are so many different versions ”Cellinis”. You can hardly speak of one model as in the case of ”sports steel”, in those cases the original model sets a clear stamp for coming generations of the same model. In the Cellini collection it has been a bit the other way around, this is where Rolex has really gone all out in its design. There are round, oval, square, rectangular as well as cases with an octagon shape. The watches were launched mainly in various precious metals, mainly gold and platinum, and sometimes they were also decorated with diamonds. The perhaps most famous model in the Cellini collection was released in the 70s and is called ”King Midas”. That model was based on the legend Gerald Genta's (d.2011) design from a limited edition that was made in 1962. In the 1980s Rolex developed the octagon shaped cases in the series and in the 90s there came among other things several oval cases. The 2000s were marked by the models Cellinium and Prince. In the 2010s the collection went back to a more classic dress look and the very last model came in four different versions, time, date, dualtime and moonphase. Below you see some examples and personal favourites of how the Cellini has looked through the years:

In 2022 Rolex chose to completely remove the Cellini collection from its range. Probably those responsible at Rolex felt that it was time to find a new concept for their dress watches. It is not impossible that the Cellini's legacy with slightly more daring models meant that the collection never took off when they shifted focus to more classic dress watches. Personally I think the Rolex Cellini collection will become rarities going forward and it is still possible to make real bargains on unusual and really good-looking watches. When the Cellini collection disappeared it was replaced by the new 1908 series, it is not entirely unlike the last models in the Cellini collection. Do you think we will get to see an all-gold octagon version of the 1908? Hardly, those times seem to be past.