The New Blue Enamel Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon

Jaeger-LeCoultre‘s Master Thin collection is home to sophisticated, understated, ultra-thin dress watches ranging from time-and-date to moon phase models and more complex proposals like tourbillons and perpetual calendars. Offered with understated beige or sunray decorated dials, JLC introduced métiers d’art dials to the collection at the end of 2018. First appearing on the Master Ultra Thin Moon model, the hand-guilloché dial added a further touch of sophistication, making its way over to the more complicated models. The latest hand-guilloché dial to emerge from JLC’s Métiers Rares Atelier appears on the pink gold Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon Enamel model in a beguiling new shade of blue.

Capturing the light with every movement of the wrist, the hand-guilloché pattern on the dial is composed of 180 sun rays radiating from the dial’s centre to the edges. Ensuring that every ray is absolutely straight, evenly spaced and aligned, the master guillocheur requires great experience and a steady hand to operate the rose engine lathe. Another challenge involves the hand-snailed or azurage interior of the date indicator at noon.

Following the guilloché work on the dial, the master enameller applies successive layers of Grand Feu enamel that are fired in a kiln at 800ºC. Although this is not the first hand-guilloché edition of the Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon – we covered an earlier edition produced as part of a trilogy in 2019 – the royal blue colour of the enamel is new. Like other Master Thin family members, the stylish gold-coloured Dauphine hour and minute hands and elongated indices applied to the dial are polished.

A large aperture at 6 o’clock with a pink gold frame laser-engraved with a seconds track houses the tourbillon. Secured by a pink gold mirror-polished bridge, the tourbillon performs its 60-second rotations while the blue triple hand tracks the seconds.

The streamlined 40mm case with a thickness of 12.13mm (not precisely an ultra-thin height in our books, to be honest…) takes its design cues from the brand’s first ultra-thin pocket watch of 1907 and is crafted in luxurious, fully polished pink gold. Visible on the reverse side is the latest generation of JLC’s automatic calibre 978, launched in 2009. Updated in 2019, the tourbillon is housed inside a titanium cage weighing less than half a gram. The polished and frosted openworked rotor reveals the radiating Geneva stripes on the bridges and other details of the 271-component movement. The power reserve is 45 hours.

Availability & Price

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon Enamel comes on a matching blue alligator strap with a pink gold folding clasp. There is no indication of it being a limited edition, so we presume it will join the regular collection. The price has not yet been officially released, but it will be in the neighbourhood of EUR 120,000.

For more information, please consult jaeger-lecoultre.com.