Jaeger-LeCoultre – This is a Reverso

Since 1931, the year the Reverso watch was created, its impact has remained as powerful as ever and is duly celebrated in this 85th anniversary year. Jaeger-LeCoultre has repeatedly devoted its many crafts to paying homage to artists on the Reverso, one of the rare watches perfectly suited to showcasing a reproduction of a work of art on the dial or case-back. For this unique occasion, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Maison De Greef are extremely proud to unveil the Reverso in tribute to René Magritte, featuring a lacquered engraving of one of his most famous paintings The Treachery of Images on its case-back. In it the artist depicted a pipe with almost photographic detail under which he wrote the sentence ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (This is not a pipe).

The great work of this Belgian surrealistic painter will be honoured in three different series of watches, each with its own distinctive characteristics. The first series of Reverso special editions is adorned with Magritte’s The Treachery of Images. The painting of Magritte appears like a hidden treasure on the ‘other’ side, revealed when the case-back of the watch is swivelled around to the front. The original canvas was painted in 1929 during one of the artist’s most creative periods in Paris and is currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This unique homage to René Magritte is realised in close collaboration with Charly Herscovici and the Magritte Foundation.

For this first series, Jaeger-LeCoultre and De Greef are introducing a white gold watch in a 5-piece edition, and a steel model in a 15-piece edition. Both feature references to the original Reverso presented in 1931. The white gold timepiece is the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin 1931 with a silver-toned dial displaying hours, minutes and small seconds; while the steel model is the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931 with a black dial showing the hours and minutes. Both are unique reversible watches equipped with the in-house Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 822. The first series of pieces can be admired exclusively at Maison De Greef, while the second and third series will be introduced over the coming years.