jaeger-lecoultre recreates monet’s venice paintings on reversible timepieces at homo faber

Jaeger-lecoultre brings Monet’s venice to homo faber 2024

At Homo Faber 2024, Jaeger-LeCoultre pays homage to Claude Monet and his series of Venice paintings. They replicate three of his 37 artworks as miniature paintings and recreate them on the back of their Reverso Tribute Enamel timepieces. They’ve chosen San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk, The Grand Canal, Venice, and The Doge’s Palace to reproduce for specific reasons. The island of San Giorgio Maggiore, opposite St. Mark’s Square, is the temporary home of Homo Faber 2024 and a view that captivated Monet enough to paint it.

Sunset at the Grand Canal, Venice is as romantic as it sounds, with the church of Santa Maria della Salute seemingly hovering as it appears on the orange-tinted horizon. When Monet described The Doge’s Palace to a friend in a letter, he wrote that it was just an excuse for him to paint the atmosphere, the effect of morning light on the water. No wonder he painted it from a gondola in the middle of the canal at around eight in the morning. These paintings of Venice appear in their rightful home, brought by Jaeger-LeCoultre in the name of Monet.

all images courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre

The making of Reverso tribute enamel timepieces

Repainting Monet’s Venice comes with many challenges. Reproducing them in miniature form—scaling from more than 65 x 92 cm to a surface of 25 x 20 mm—is just the beginning. The masters at the Métiers Rares Atelier of Jaeger-LeCoultre managed to recreate the artist’s impasto, the textured effect of thicker paint, to evoke the dreamlike quality of the originals.

They applied 14 layers of enamel for the depth of colors. Each has three base layers, four layers of painting, and seven layers of translucent ‘fondant,’ with up to 15 separate firings at up to 800 degrees Celsius. A glance at the dials reveals that the enamelers have adorned the three watches with hand-guilloché patterns, a technique that engraves repetitive patterns onto a surface by hand.

The Doge’s Palace

Dauphine or sword-like hands for the watches’ dials

After applying these patterns, they layer them with a semi-translucent colored enamel over the top to coat them while still making them visible. This process takes around eight to nine hours per dial. Each layer needs to be fired for five layers of enamel before the final result is achieved. Another challenge that the watch brand has successfully overcome is drilling tiny holes through the enamel.

After firing, the enamel is fragile, but the masters, with their delicate touch, still manage to puncture the center of the dial so the watch hands can be correctly placed. For these hands, Jaeger-LeCoultre uses Dauphine hands, pointed and sword-like, to signal classic and elegant style. Visitors to Homo Faber 2024 can view the timepieces until September 30th, 2024. The watch brand has 10 pieces per Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Venice Series’ model on sale.

Jaeger-LeCoultre pays homage to Claude Monet and his series of Venice paintings