A pair rather than a trio or a set of four: two Grande Taille Reversos built around Alfons Mucha’s 1899 panels Aurore (Dawn) and Crépuscule (Dusk), painted by Mucha himself right at the turn of the previous century. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own launch material draws the parallel directly: one figure covers her body at nightfall, the other hesitates to disrobe as a new day breaks — read at the time as mankind’s uncertainty facing an unknown future, and picked up again by Miklos Merczel’s atelier for the turn of the millennium a hundred years later. The gold case-back is sandwiched between coats of white enamel first, so it won’t warp under the 850°C firing; the miniature is then built up in layers with a brush tapered to a single hair, each layer fired separately, with the artist having to predict how every colour will shift once it comes out of the kiln, intensifying the palette layer by layer until the final image reads true. Twenty-five sets of two were made, sold together rather than separately, in 18k yellow gold.
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The hesitant counterpart to Crépuscule: a figure caught at the moment of a new day breaking, read by Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own material as the more hopeful half of the pair. White enamel dial with subsidiary seconds at six; manual calibre 822; black leather strap with an 18k yellow gold deployant clasp.
Mucha’s own words for the painting, per Jaeger-LeCoultre’s launch material: “the shivering form of this woman covering herself at the close of the day illustrates mankind’s fears and hesitations in the face of an unknown future.” Same case, dial, and movement specification as Aurore — the two were conceived and sold as a single dawn/dusk statement rather than as two independent watches.