Jaeger-LeCoultre

Jaeger-LeCoutre Introduces the Reverso Tribute Enamel Hidden Treasures Collection

by Revolution . Oct 20, 2021

Jaeger-LeCoultre

Jaeger-LeCoutre Introduces the Reverso Tribute Enamel Hidden Treasures Collection

Long before “personalization” became a big trend among watch enthusiasts, Jaeger-LeCoultre offered its clients unique possibilities of customization through the Reverso’s caseback, which served as blank canvases to be adorned with family crests, monograms, messages, paintings and more.

The links between India and the Reverso go beyond the original watch developed for the British polo players.One of the most stunning enamelled Reversos is from 1936. It features the beautiful portrait of the Maharani of an Indian State, although her exact identity has never been confirmed.

Then there is another vintage Reverso caliber 410 from 1949 with an enameled illustration of the Hindu deity Rama. This watch was part of an exhibition hosted by the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2009.

In the early 1990s, Hungarian watchmaker Miklos Merczel started to utilize the rear of the Reverso case for miniature enamel paintings. He launched the in-house enamel workshop at Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1996 with a set of watches that presented Czech artist Alphonse Mucha’s famous decorative panels, The Seasons, from 1896.

A 1936 Reverso with the portrait of Maharani Kanchan Prabha Devi of Tripura

Originally painted by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, reimagined onto the wrist by Miklos Merczel (Image: Sothebys.com)

Over the years, the métiers d’art workshop at Jaeger-LeCoultre has developed several new tools and techniques to recreate the magic of masterpieces by artists like Georges Seurat and Katsushika Hokusai. In 2018, the Maison paid tribute to Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler with miniature enamel paintings of his artworks, such as Lake Thun with Symmetric Reflections Before Sunrise, on the Reverso caseback. The Hodler Reversos combined two decorative techniques — guilloché engraving on the dial as well as further hand-applied engraving on the reverse side of the watch — and enameling.

Continuing on this grand tradition, the maison has announced three new Reverso timepieces that recreate the works of masters from the early days of Modern Art, namely, Gustave Courbet, Vincent Van Gogh and Gustav Klimt. Based on the theme of “Hidden Treasures,” a piece of work from each artist was chosen to be reproduced on the caseback of the contemporary Reverso Tribute serving as the canvas, in three different expertise: grand feu enamel, miniature painting and guillochage. The Reverso Tribute collection is by far the closest when it comes to details shared with the original Reverso from the 1930s.

Jaeger-LeCoutre Introduces the Reverso Tribute Enamel Hidden Treasures Collection

But why the theme of “Hidden Treasures,” and why these particular artists? Jaeger-LeCoutre first explains that the artists were chosen because they represent three important landmarks within the Western artistic tradition starting with the 19th-Century Realism of Courbet, Van Gogh’s Post-Impressionism, and lastly, the expressive and experimental spirit of Klimt and the Viennese Secession. As to why the specific pieces of art from each artist, the maison explains that these are pieces that had been hidden for far too long until their recent discovery and authentication.

Gustave Courbet – View of Lake Léman (1876)

From Gustave Courbet’s library of paintings, the one that Jaeger-LeCoutre has opted for is the View of Lake Léman (1876). The story goes that in the early 1890s, just about 15 years after Courbet had passed on, a resident from the of the town of Granville in Normandy, had entrusted this and two other paintings of Courbet to the Musée du Vieux Granville. At the end of World War II, the museum is known to have had moved the paintings into a storage facility where they remained out of sight, and therefore, out of mind for seven whole decades before a specialist was consulted about the paintings who wrote them off as for inauthentic.

In 2015, while preparing some documentation for the Musée du Vieux Granville, a curator felt a compulsion to seek a second opinion and reached out to leading Courbet expert Bruno Mottin, of Musées de France. After two years’ worth of research, Mottin certified that the View of Lake Léman was, very much, an authentic piece of art.

Gustave Courbet – View of Lake Léman (1876)

Transferring a painting that conveys such a delicate sense of atmosphere and this incredible use of gradated colors, and on a surface that’s just 45.6 x 27.4 mm, is no mean feat. And let’s not forget that missing out on any amount of Courbet’s details, when transposing his work, would be simply disrespectful to the master’s legacy. On all these note, Jaeger-LeCoutre has performed remarkably. Courbet’s View of Lake Léman (1876) has been recreated on the back of a white gold Reverso Tribute with a misty grey-blue herringbone guilloche dial on the front.

Gustave Courbet – View of Lake Léman (1876)

Vincent Van Gogh – Sunset at Montmajour (1888)

On any given day, reproducing and paying tribute to the name and works of Van Gogh is a daunting endeavor. The story of the Sunset at Montmajour goes that it was a piece bought by Norwegian industrialist and collector, Cristian Nicolai Mustad, in 1908. Following which, the the French Ambassador to Sweden at the time, an acquaintance of Mustad’s, had written the painting off as a fake. A deeply hurt Mustad, therefore, relegated the painting to his attic until he passed on in 1970, when again it was declared fake. The painting resurfaced for authentication once again in 1991, where it was the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam that chose to mark it fake.

It was not until two decades later, in 2011, that experts at the same Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, thought it worthwhile having a look at the painting once more and have it be scrutinized using more advanced methodologies. It was in particular, the chemical tests that helped match the pigments on the canvas with that of Van Gogh’s palette from Arles. Therein, in September 2013, at long last the Muesum was confident enough to declare Sunset at Montmajour an authentic work of Van Gogh’s, making this the first full-sized painting by Van Gogh to be authenticated since 1928.

Vincent Van Gogh – Sunset at Montmajour (1888)

There’s also further evidence of the painting’s authenticity in a letter Van Gogh wrote to his younger brother Theo, where he shares, “Yesterday, at sunset, I was on a stony heath where very small, twisted oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill, and wheat fields… The sun was pouring its very yellow rays over the bushes and the ground… I brought back a study of it too…”

Again, the challenge in place for Jaeger-LeCoutre was to transfer all of Van Gogh’s nuances onto the caseback of the Reverso Tribute, including his brush strokes and heavy impasto. The result is surely a worthy addition to the canon of Van Gogh’s legacy, paired with a sunray-guilloché green enamel dial.

Vincent Van Gogh – Sunset at Montmajour (1888)

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of a Lady (1917)

Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady (1917) is an intriguing one. In 1996, an art student by the name of Claudia Maga found out that the painting she had in front of her was in fact one that Klimt had painted over an earlier portrait, which was thought to have been lost since 1912. The initial portrait was that of young lady whom Klimt had taken a fancy to; fallen in love with, in fact. However, she passed on at a tender age. Even into Klimt’s old age, he remained so affected by the loss of his muse that he painted over her portrait with that of a completely different lady.

Shortly after Claudia Maga’s discover, the painting was unfortunately stolen in 1997, while it was being prepared for a special exhibition at the Oddi Gallery of Modern Art in Piacenza, Italy, where it had been on display since 1925. Many forged instances of the painting seemed to appear in the coming years and most in the art world had thought the painting gone for good.

But then in 2019, a peculiar thing happened. Gardeners clearing ivy from an outside wall of the Oddi Gallery chanced upon a metal panel. Behind which, they found a black rubbish bag containing the lost painting, which was swift authenticated by experts.

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of a Lady (1917)

Jaeger-LeCoutre shares that the story grows stranger still. The thief who had stolen the painting came forward in exchange for immunity saying that what he had stolen in 1997 was a fake piece. The original had been stolen months earlier. The fake was stolen thereafter to avoid it being discovered by experts visiting the Gallery and therefore incriminating his accomplice on the inside. Which then leaves the mystery of how did the original end up where the gardeners stumbled upon it?

That Jaeger-LeCoutre took a painting with such curious history and recreated on the back of a Reverso Tribute is, however, no mystery. Here Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady (1917) is captured in miniature with all of secrecy of the original painting itself, from the muse, to the lady who was depicted on the canvas thereafter, to the painting’s own fascinating trials. The dial on this one is decorated with barleycorn guilloche patten in green grand feu enamel.

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of a Lady (1917)

Gustave Courbet – View of Lake Léman (1876)

Vincent Van Gogh – Sunset at Montmajour (1888)

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of a Lady (1917)

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