It was 200 years ago this week, on September 1, 1821, when French watchmaker Nicolas Rieussec attended a horse race at the Champs-de-Mars Arrondissement de la Seine in Paris intending to test his newest invention. The device, a chronometer clock with two rotating counters and a fixed nib that inscribed black ink marks on them when each horse crossed the finish line, was the first machine dubbed a “chronograph” ? from the Greek words chronos (time) and graphein (to write) ? by no less an authority than France’s Academy of Sciences. Today, Montblanc ? a luxury brand known for both writing implements and watches ? pays tribute to that original “time writer” with a limited-edition wristwatch.

The Montblanc Star Legacy Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph LE 200 is the latest member of the Rieussec watch family, established by Montblanc in 2008, and pays the most direct aesthetic tribute to its historical predecessor (below). The gold-colored base of the watch’s complex, six-part dial is embellished with a traditional grain d’orge guilloché motif, and the domed, rotating chronograph disks on the bottom left and right are also gold-toned. Reminiscent of the historical device’s stationary inking nibs, a blued, applied double hand is fixed between the two disks to tally 60 elapsed minutes and 30 elapsed seconds. A monopusher at 8 o’clock on the case activates the chronograph.
Rounding out the dial are an off-center, domed...