Before Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso became the Swiss watchmaker’s biggest pillar and a canvas for some exceptional miniature painting, engraving, and mechanics, it was a practical tool watch developed for polo-playing field officers stationed in India during the British Raj of the 1930s. Its innovative dial was made to flip over so the metal back case would face the sun while on the wrist during a match, so the dial wouldn’t get damaged. In today’s era, it is considered one of the most classic dress watches on the market, but it’s rectangular shape and clever flip-flop mechanism has also allowed it to become one of the most creative models in the business. Jaeger-LeCoultre continues to innovate on the Reverso. “Under one roof, we have the presence of more than of more than 430 registered patents and the development of 1400 movements and all that is making the Reverso, as well [as the brand’s other timepieces] truly unique and truly an icon of its time,” CEO Jérôme Lambert told Robb Report in March. The wildest example? The Reverso Hybris Mechanica Quadryptique, which debuted with four sides—a world first with mechanics on the both dials of the flip-face, as well as the cradle and caseback. It may be the most complicated of the Reverso’s to date, but this year, as the exhibition for which Art Deco was named (the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes from Paris) celebrates its centennial, Jaeger-LeCoultre ramped up the focus on the model to debut a slew of new versions that wowed the crowds at Watches & Wonders. Here are a few of our favorites.
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Reverso Hybris Artistica Calibre 179
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre One of the most complicated Reverso models in the Jaeger-LeCoultre catalog, the Hybris Artistica is notable for its impressive Gyrotourbillon: Its inner cage rotates 360 degrees every 16 seconds while a peripheral carriage completes a full turn every minute. This single complication alone requires 123 tiny components to set its horological dance into motion. Just for the cage of the Gyrotourbillon, 14 hours of hand-beveling work has been done to finish this tiny component to the hilt. Eight hours of hand-chamfering is required for the signature bridge on the reverse side. The mechanics are accentuated by hand-applied lacquer work in a stunning combination of art and engineering. The new white-gold version is limited to just 10 pieces worldwide.
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Reverso Tribute Minute Repeater
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre Some minute repeaters show off their mechanical complexity through the dial side, while others display it through the caseback. The Reverso Tribute does both. If you’d prefer to be discreet, the hours and minutes contrast with an elegantly hand-guilloched dial. But if you feel like showing off, flip it over for a full view of the brand-new Calibre 953 so you can explain, with visuals, why the movement has seven patents—and why only 30 will ever exist. “What you see here is the Reverso Minute Repeater of 1994 and this for this reinterpretation of the watch, our art director and developers have been again taking the path of the invention to propose to the watch a new movement (the 953), a new face, and a set of new patents to support the proposition,” says Lambert. The patents are for its crystal gongs, trébuchet hammers, and a silence gap suppression, to name a few.
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Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Enamel “Shahnameh”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre Polo is one of the oldest team sports in existence, believed to have originated in Persia in the sixth century B.C.E. Coincidentally, miniature painting is also linked to the region during this period. Limited to 10 pieces each in a series of four iterations, these timepieces portray early polo scenes—via guillochage, grand feu enameling, paillonnage, and miniature enamel-painting techniques— depicted in the 16th-century edition of the Persian epic Shahnameh, or The Persian Book of Kings.
“It is the first time in history that polo was named in a book describing characters playing ball on a horse,” says Lambert. “And we have been able to recreate that scene in miniature painting.” The gold sky is actually leaves of gold integrated into the hand-painting work. “We use a technique of paillonage, which is an antique technique of enameling that we combine with miniature painting like it would have been done in a book,” he says. The idea was to mimic the threads of gold that were used in the ancient text. It is just one of the many extraordinary techniques that serve as a reminder of the preservation of incredible centuries-old craftsmanship, still alive and well in Switzerland today.
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