Experience
Goodbye, Wave
Eight watches, one blue dial, and a question the manufacture does not usually answer with yes.
Reverso Tribute Enamel — Hokusai, unique commission · 2018
In 2018, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced three extraordinary Reverso Tribute Enamel watches. Each carried a miniature reproduction of a famous work of art on its reverse: Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, horses inspired by Xu Beihong, and Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Only eight of each were to be made.
The paintings were beautifully executed but they weren’t what I fell in love with, it was the dials: one was white, another green, and the third an extraordinary blue. The blue and green versions combined a guilloché lozenge pattern with translucent grand feu enamel, creating a depth that is almost impossible to capture in a photograph, and I wanted that blue dial.
There was only one problem: on the other side was Hokusai’s Wave. I have nothing against Hokusai. I enjoy Japanese ukiyo-e and even own several original prints by Hiroshige. But The Great Wave has become so reproduced, on posters, mugs, shirts, souvenirs and seemingly everything else, that I no longer felt any personal connection to the image. And a Reverso, especially one like this, should feel personal. I couldn’t justify buying the watch simply because I loved one side while wishing the other side were different.
So I asked a question I didn’t really expect Jaeger-LeCoultre to say yes to: could I have the blue dial without the Wave? A couple of weeks later, they said yes, they were willing to remove one of the eight blue pieces from the planned production. Everything about the watch would remain the same, except the reverse would carry my engraving. I had to go one step further and asked whether they would also engrave Piece Unique on it, but this time they said no. Fair enough, but I had to try!
I had fallen in love with one half of a Reverso and had been given the opportunity to make the other half my own. Of all the watches I have owned, this remains one of the hardest to photograph. No picture quite captures the depth of that blue enamel dial. Some watches really do have to be seen. And some have to become yours before they feel complete.
About Mitch & Linda Katz
For Mitch Katz and his wife Linda, watches have never been simply objects to collect. They have become part of a life together, connected to friendships, travels, accidents, laughter, personal milestones, and the people they have met along the way. That same belief, that the real value of a watch lies in the stories surrounding it, also led Mitch to write Time on My Hands: A Collector’s Journey in the World of Watches, his memoir about the watches, people, and experiences that shaped his collecting life. He has since carried his love of horology into fiction with Time Eternal, the first in a series of mysteries set within the world of watches, with three further novels in development. Together, these ten watches tell something larger than the story of a collection: the story of Mitch and Linda, and of how, over time, watches became part of the memories they share.