In addition to the many watch-world anniversaries being commemorated this year, 2018 also marks 100 years since the death of one of Switzerland’s best-known artists, 19th-century symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler (1853 – 1918). And leave it to Swiss watchmaking maison Jaeger-LeCoultre, which has previously paid tribute to the work of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, to commemorate the occasion with a limited-edition Reverso watch from its heralded “Métiers Rares” workshops. Consisting of three models, each limited to only eight pieces, the Reverso Tribute Enamel is this week’s Watch to Watch.
“Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the Morning Light” (1918)
Like the Van Gogh watch that preceded them in 2016, the Reverso Tribute Enamel timepieces dedicated to Hodler are notable for their miniaturized reproductions of the artist’s works, executed in intricate engraving, enameling, and miniature painting, on the dials. The front dial on the swiveling Reverso case features an engraved “woven” motif, achieved with the use of a century-old guilloché machine, which is delicately rendered by an expert artisan and then covered in translucent grand feu enamel in a color that reflects the predominant tone of the miniature painting on the watch’s back dial. Each of these enamelled paintings, framed by an intricately engraved border as well as the Reverso case’s emblematic gadroons, re-creates in stunning detail one of H...