Not to be confused with the three-piece Mucha set from 2018 elsewhere in this archive — this is the original, and the watch that began Jaeger-LeCoultre’s modern enamel programme entirely. In 1991 Miklos Merczel, a Hungarian-trained watchmaker who had moved through Cartier’s complications department before joining LeCoultre, spotted an antique enamelled pocket watch at the Basel Fair. Self-taught from there, he earned the title of Master Enameller in 1995, and in 1996 unveiled his first enamelled Reverso set: four watches after Alfons Mucha’s The Seasons, one of the most recognisable Art Nouveau images of the 1890s. Each case-back carries a painted enamel portrait of a woman personifying her season; the dials are white enamel with painted Arabic numerals, a blue minute track, and blued steel épée hands — the only Reversos, before or since, built with a genuinely enamelled dial rather than a lacquered or guilloché one. Twenty-five sets of four were made, all in 18k yellow gold, and sold as complete sets rather than individually — which makes a full matching set, rather than a single watch, the rare thing to find today.
Sources: Antiquorum — complete set · Sotheby’s — Spring · Sotheby’s — Summer · Sotheby’s — Autumn · Sotheby’s — Winter
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A fair maiden stands under blossoming trees, celebrating rebirth with a lyre in hand; bright flowers and green leaves surround her, and her translucent white dress reads as purity — spring cast as the innocent opening act of the year.
A woman rests against a blossoming poppy field, dipping her feet into a cool lake, a red flower crown against fiery hair and a deep blue sky behind her — heat and abundance held in the same image.
A crimson-haired figure gathers grapes from a laden vine, a chrysanthemum wreath in her hair, set against a tangerine harvest landscape — the same imagery Jaeger-LeCoultre would echo again in its 2018 Mucha revival.
A bashful figure in a green cape cradles a small bird against the cold, snow covering the ground around her — winter read not as an ending but as patience, life held in reserve until spring returns.