A trio built around Xu Beihong (1895–1953), the Chinese painter whose ink-and-wash horses helped define modern Chinese art — and, with the Lunar Year of the Horse arriving in February 2026, a deliberately timed subject. It isn’t the first time Jaeger-LeCoultre has used his work: a different Xu Beihong trio appeared in 2018 as part of a set dedicated to several artists. This version keeps the format — three case-backs, three paintings — in the classic 45.6 × 27.4 mm Grande Taille case. Each back takes roughly 80 hours of miniature enamel painting in the Métiers Rares atelier to shrink a canvas originally over a square metre onto a surface of about two square centimetres; the fronts pair translucent flinqué grand feu enamel with hand-guilloché patterns cut on a traditional hand-operated rose engine. Ref. Q39334B1–B3, 10 pieces of each, roughly US$150,000–153,000 at launch.
Sources: SJX — introduction · Watch Collecting Lifestyle
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A single horse caught mid-gallop, its form suggesting motion beyond the physical. The dial is Evergreen Pine Green grand feu enamel over a 120-line sunray guilloché — pine standing, in Chinese symbolism, for unwavering strength and vitality.
One dark horse, one pale, in synchronized motion — a study in the kind of paired opposites classical Chinese thought would read as yin and yang. The dial runs Distant Mountain Blue grand feu enamel over a barleycorn guilloché, the blue standing in for peaks lost in morning mist.
Stillness charged with held power — a horse at rest but clearly not at ease. The dial pairs a 120-line herringbone guilloché with Crimson Dawn Orange grand feu enamel, echoing the warm light of the original ink landscape at sunrise.