The 1990s are a fascinating period for watchmaking: 20 years had passed since the quartz crisis, and the market was showing the first signs of a newfound interest for the field of mechanical timepieces, a trend that would fully blossom in the 2000s. The brands, however, started to react to these signals. The conservative style of the 1970s and 1980s - defined by simple dials and elaborated case designs - started to give way to bolder dial designs. Skeletonized dials are one of the results of this new trend: virtually nonexistent in the 1980s, they began to make their ways into watch designs in the first half of the 1990s. In the 1990s, three Audemars Piguet Royal Oak models featured a skeletonized dial: reference 14794 (a skeletonize time only wristwatch) reference 25729 (a skeletonize pocket watch with perpetual calendar and moonphases), and the present reference 25829.

Reference 25829 (and its pocket counterpart) are powered by calibre 2120/2802, at the time the thinnest automatic perpetual calendar movement available on the market.

Aesthetically speaking, reference 25829 is immensely charismatic. While sometimes skeletonized dials can be difficult to read, the design of this model, thanks to the four cutout subdials, is perfectly readable without sacrificing the openworks feel of the skeleton dial.

The combination of sublime technical execution and unmistakable looks has over time led the collector community to consecrate this model as one of the most interesting, attractive and collectible complicated Royal Oak executions.

According to the Archives of Audemars Piguet, the present watch was sold in Italy in 2002.