A second 2018 trio, distinct from the Seurat/Xu Beihong/Hokusai set released earlier that year: three of the four panels from Alfons Mucha’s The Seasons, his celebrated 1896 series of decorative panels — Winter is the one season left out, for reasons Jaeger-LeCoultre never explained. It wasn’t the manufacture’s first attempt at the set: a complete run of all four seasons appeared in 1996, 25 pieces each, painted by Miklos Merczel, then JLC’s Head Enamel Artist (since retired). This 2018 revival used three different, more junior hands to reinterpret the theme. Each case-back miniature sits inside a frame that is entirely hand-engraved and hand-carved — unusual even by Métiers Rares standards, since the engraving happens after enamelling, working a special chisel around the fired miniature without disturbing it. Reproducing Mucha’s Art Nouveau line at roughly 3 by 2 cm meant working with a far more limited palette than Mucha himself had, while planning ahead for how each oxide colour would shift after firing at 800°C and again during cooling — a minimum of fifteen firings per watch between the base coats, the miniature itself, and six to eight protective top layers. Mucha had already inspired Jaeger-LeCoultre before this trio, in the 1996 "The Seasons" itself, the 1999 "Precious Gemstones", and the 2001 "Clair de Lune". Eight pieces of each reference, boutique-only, roughly €95,500 for the set of three at launch.
Sources: James Magazine · GMT Post · Watch I Love · Deployant — hands-on
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White gold case with a blue Grand Feu enamel front dial — the season rendered in the same deep, saturated colour family as a summer sky, guillochéd in sunburst under the transparent enamel to harmonise with the miniature on the reverse.
Mucha personifies the season as a young blonde woman in a translucent white dress, standing beneath a flowering tree. The flowing lines of the dress fought the enamel’s protective top layers, which flatten spontaneity in a drawing this fluid — getting them right took extensive research and repeated trials, as did the small details: the white flowers in her hair, the birds, the densely detailed background. Over 100 hours total for the caseback: roughly 70 of enamel painting, 30 of hand engraving for the sculpted frame around the miniature.
The same sunburst guilloché as Spring, under a different-coloured translucent lacquer. Mucha’s Autumn is a playful, bountiful figure set among a rich tapestry of autumnal plants, fruit and flowers, a wreath of chrysanthemums in her long auburn hair, gathering grapes from an abundant vine — a fairly direct metaphor for the season’s harvest.