This year, to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the iconic Reverso, Jaeger-LeCoultre has launched the Atelier Reverso. The first studio to open was in the watchmaker’s exclusive London boutique, but all Jaeger-LeCoultre shops now have their own Atelier in which clients can create their own customised watch. The option to select the case size and material, the dial, the strap, the setting and engraving on the reverse of single-face models gives purchasers an even more exclusive luxury object.
Ideal format
This “democratisation of exclusivity” is, for the Reverso, the logical conclusion of an approach first taken in 1935, in a country where the tradition of miniature painting was alive and well, and where the Reverso was well known, since it was on a polo field in colonial India that it was first tested under real-world conditions. The first examples of customised Reverso watches – three watches decorated with miniatures of beautiful Indian ladies and the Hindu deity Krishna – were no doubt made for maharajas or other wealthy Indian dignitaries.
Like the canvas of most artistic masterpieces, the Reverso is rectangular, although “portrait” rather than “landscape” in orientation. This gives it a considerable advantage over round watches when it comes to executing a miniature reproduction of an existing painting, and Jaeger-LeCoultre has used this feature to great effect.
Reproductions of famous paintings
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s enamelling workshop, set up in 1996, today employs seven enamellers. Over the years the workshop has reproduced many masterpieces for Reverso watches. Perhaps the most well-known is the Pavonia, an enamel miniature of a painting by Lord Leighton, created in 2008 on the back of a yellow gold Reverso for a British art collector.
“Originally, we enamelled the backs of Reverso watches,” explains Miklos Merczel, head of artistic crafts for Jaeger-LeCoultre. “We created several series, including Andy Warhol’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe, a woman’s head by Roy Lichtenstein, and in 2002 a series of 10 pieces based on two paintings by Caspar David Friedrich. They were unusual because this was the first time we had used a guilloché base, which was then covered by opaline rather than white enamel, producing a slightly translucent pearlescent finish. This spring we also did a Magritte painting, the Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), which was engraved onto the back of a Grande Reverso Ultra Thin and then lacquered, and also Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, as a unique piece. We have also produced decorated dials, most frequently on Reverso à Eclipse models. The Nude series included works by Ingres, Renoir and Botticelli. Klimt has been the subject of four different treatments, including his famous The Kiss. We also have a Titeuf model, and a Kandinsky.”
The art of miniaturisation
The latest Reverso à Eclipse dedicated to an artist bears a miniature Selfportrait as a Painter by Van Gogh, whose Sunflowers had already featured on a Reverso à Eclipse in 2015. The four watches were produced by four different enamellers, “to give each of them the opportunity to be involved in an exceptional creation, because we also produce pieces that are far less interesting than miniatures,” Miklos Merczel explains. The challenge lies in translating an original painting measuring 65.1 cm x 50 cm onto a dial measuring 45 mm x 30 mm. Considerable experience in enamelling techniques is obviously essential.
“We begin by preparing the white enamel base on the dial. Only when the surface is vitrified can the miniature painting begin,” Miklos Merczel explains. The proportions of the miniature are worked out by computer, which also produces an initial sketch. “We do use Photoshop, but only to render the subject to scale with good definition,” admits Miklos Merczel. “This small image, which we print out in colour, is our reference. We place it alongside the subject to ensure that the outlines are accurate. But after that, all the details are reproduced by hand with reference to the artwork printed out on an A4 sheet in full resolution. We work with the naked eye and binocular loupes.”
Texture and colour
Van Gogh’s distinctive painting technique comes from his use of thick paint applied using many small, quick strokes, which could be tricky to reproduce. Miklos Merczel explains: “It’s impossible to achieve the same effect as Van Gogh, because the thick layer of paint he put down dried on the surface of the canvas. Our technique is different. We begin by laying down a lot of material with tiny brush strokes, but when it’s fired the enamel becomes slightly thinner. We can produce an illusion of thick paint, but not in exactly the same way as Van Gogh did with his pigments.”
In terms of the colours, although the task of reproducing the Dutch painter’s rich palette was something of a gamble, Miklos Merczel is confident in the results. “Normally, it is possible to reproduce all the colours,” he states. “Despite the fact that we have a maximum of thirty different shades to work with, they can all be mixed, which means we can obtain some quite incredible colours.”
