Source: https://myreversostory.com/series/arte-portuguesa Summary: Five Portuguese artists, twelve years, one watch each turned into a private commission. Launched in 2000 by Pedro Torres, an art and watch collector who ran… Updated: 2026-09-11 Publisher: My Reverso Story (https://myreversostory.com), an independent collector archive, not affiliated with Jaeger-LeCoultre. Artistic Edition # Reverso / Arte Portuguesa Five Portuguese artists, twelve years, one watch each turned into a private commission. **Introduced**2000–2012 **Crafts**Enamel, engraving, hand-painted miniature — technique varies by artist **Edition size**20–40 pieces per edition (see individual pieces) **Movement**Calibre 822 / 822/2, manual-wound **Case**Grande Taille / Grande Reverso 976, various metals **Pieces in set**5 Launched in 2000 by Pedro Torres, an art and watch collector who ran Torres Distribuição — Jaeger-LeCoultre’s distributor in Portugal — Reverso/Arte Portuguesa invited major Portuguese artists to use the Reverso’s case-back as a canvas for their own interpretation of time. Each edition paired a numbered, limited Reverso with a silkscreen print of the artwork, hand-signed by the artist; the case-back additionally carries the edition number, movement number, and the artist’s name. Editions ran from 20 to 40 pieces (plus one artist’s proof, given to the artist). Júlio Pomar opened the series in 2000 and returned in a later year with a sculptural piece for the round Master Control line — counted separately from the Reverso editions below — which is generally why Julião Sarmento’s 2012 pair is referred to as the “sixth edition” despite being only the fifth Reverso in the set. Sources: [MasterHorologer — Sarmento, 6th edition](https://masterhorologer.com/2012/06/06/jaeger-lecoultre-reverso-arte-portuguesa-sixth-edition-in-association-with-portuguese-artist-juliao-sarmento/) · [Espiral do Tempo — 20 years retrospective](https://espiraldotempo.com/icones-20-anos-depois-recordar-a-colecao-reverso-arte-portuguesa/) · [Espiral do Tempo — a reader’s story](https://espiraldotempo.com/um-leitor-uma-historia-reverso-arte-portuguesa-no-pulso/) · [Estação Chronographica, May 2012](https://estacaochronographica.blogspot.com/2012/05/chegado-ao-mercado-jaeger-lecoultre_30.html) Click any piece to turn it over ### Júlio Pomar — the hare and the tortoise 2000 · Reverso Date, white gold Pomar, one of 20th-century Portugal’s major painters and known for recurring animal imagery, chose Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise to represent time — “the hare seems to be keeping the beat, and the tortoise asks why it’s making so much noise,” in his own words. Base model: Reverso Date in white gold, with a pointer date and an off-centre day window. Example No. 1 was auctioned for charity through Casa do Artista, opening at roughly 3,500 contos and closing at 5,150 (about €25,000). ### Manuel Cargaleiro — cosmos and azulejo 2001 · Reverso Or Déco, white gold Cargaleiro, a painter, printmaker and ceramicist, called his own style “lyrical abstraction.” His engraved composition pairs a spiral — his personal symbol for eternal return — with three red spheres standing for the cosmos, over an azulejo-tile pattern referencing Portugal’s best-known decorative art form; the blue is the sea, the palette a nod to the flag of Geneva. Base model: Reverso Or Déco, white gold case, floral numerals. No. 1 sold for €20,500 at a Cabral Moncada charity auction benefiting pianist Maria João Pires’s Centro para o Estudo das Artes de Belgais; retail was €18,750. ### Paula Rego — woman and pelican Ref. 270.2.62 2002 · Grande Taille, rose gold Rego — later recognised as the most internationally significant Portuguese painter of her generation — chose an image she had returned to across her career: a woman kissing a pelican, a bird said to feed its young from its own body, in an embrace she describes as reading like Leda and the Swan. In her words, the image carries “some complicity on the part of the woman, otherwise she would have fled,” and doubles as a study of who dominates whom — “eternal time,” repeating endlessly. Base model: Reverso Grande Taille in rose gold, signature on the dial. 40 pieces at €21,900 including the print. ### José de Guimarães — the serpent 2003 · Reverso Gran’Sport, steel The first Arte Portuguesa edition in steel rather than gold, the first on a Gran’Sport case, the first with a strap designed specifically for it, and the first with the artist’s signature engraved directly on the case. Guimarães used a serpent — a symbol of eternity in some African traditions he draws on — with one green eye and one red eye, the colours of the Portuguese flag, over a mottled white ground reproducing the relief texture of his original drawing. 40 pieces at €9,750, the most accessible edition in the series. ### Julião Sarmento — the female form 2012 · Grande Reverso 976, rose gold or steel The sixth Arte Portuguesa commission overall (fifth in a Reverso case, following Pomar’s separate Master Control sculpture piece), issued as two parallel editions: 20 in rose gold with a black dial and a round small-seconds sub-dial (€17,900), 30 in steel with a rectangular small-seconds sub-dial (€9,900). Sarmento’s engraved female silhouette — the recurring subject of his career — is paired with a silkscreen print in dark yellow for the gold version and black-and-white for the steel. “It has to do with the space a woman occupies, and with an indeterminate time in which she simply exists — not a fleeting time, an eternal one,” Sarmento has said of the theme. Help Complete This Set ## Missing details, missing photos. Missing a photo, or have a detail to add? If you own one of these pieces, or have the press pack, we'd like to hear from you. [Get In Touch](https://myreversostory.com/#submit)