Back in 2006, Jaeger-LeCoultre created the Reverso Hybris Mechanica a Triptyque, possessed of three faces and a multitude of built-in horological complications. The most complicated evolution yet of the Reverso, Jaeger-LeCoulte’s legendary and enduring two-faced timepiece born in 1931, it prompted many of us who cover the watch industry to wonder if the venerable Swiss watchmaker, or any watchmaker, could ever top it. Fifteen years later, in the 90th anniversary year of the original Reverso, Jaeger-LeCoultre has taken up the gauntlet and done just that. Here is the Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 ? aka “Quadriptyque” ? the first Reverso model to boast not two, not three, but four functioning display faces and a staggering 11 complications.
The key to accomplishing this “grand oeuvre” of watchmaking, which was six years in the making, was the creation of the first double-faced case, outfitted with an all-new manufacture movement, Caliber 185, integrated with a double-faced cradle whose indications are also synchronized and updated by that movement. The case itself is in the classic Reverso style, a soft-edged, Art Deco-influenced rectangle, made of white gold, and measures a substantial but very wearable 51 mm by 31 mm. Its 11 complications include a perpetual calendar, minute repeater, flying tourbillon, grande date, and three lunar-cycle indications never before combined in a wristwatch: one each for the synodic, draconic, and anom...