The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Lune Rétrograde

Spearheading the Maurice Lacroix Manufacture, the Masterpiece collection strikes a clever balance between technology, tradition, and modernist esthetics.

The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Lune Rétrograde Photo by Maurice Lacroix
The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Lune Rétrograde Photo by Maurice Lacroix
The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Lune Rétrograde Photo by Maurice Lacroix

It represents the brand's expertise, particularly its mastery of retrograde complications, moon phases, and chronographs, while creating a new image to measure time.

The timepieces of this flagship collection meet the highest standards of mechanical watchmaking set out by renowned manufacturers. The cases, dials, and movements attest to the quality of their design and execution down to the minutest detail, reflecting the brand's rigorous approach to research and development.

The esthetics of the Masterpiece collection has evolved toward a contemporary design inspired by the art of living. Featuring modern finishes and silhouettes, this collection promotes a new experience of watchmaking that is firmly attuned to today's world. Combining expertise and daring style, these watches revisit tradition with simple elegance, avoiding pretense and excess extravagance. Created for modern-day dandies for whom performance and etiquette are everyday necessities, these watches embody the identity of a young brand whose innovative edge has given rise to a solid reputation.

This year, two new timepieces have joined the world of mechanical jewelry and are driven by movements designed and developed in-house. The Masterpiece Chronographe Squelette and the Masterpiece Lune Retrograde capture time within a prominent high-tech case. Water-resistant to 100 meters, they boast shaped push-pieces and a ¼-turn screw-down crown. The decoration features alternating polished and circular/vertical satin-brushed surfaces, which result in a perfectly finished and balanced design. Refined. Striking.

Robust designs and precise operation firmly entrench these watches in an urban and hedonistic 21st century, which enjoys combining time with sophistication.

The kinetics of time
The look is contemporary, the demeanor stately. The new Masterpiece Lune Rétrograde introduces a new interface that is unique in its kind and that offers time measurement a generous case with a 46 mm diameter. Driven by the new Manufacture-made ML 152 movement, this timepiece is imbued with a geometric simplicity that galvanizes its mechanical complexity.

Like time itself, it displays a dynamic personality that is constantly on the move together with a high-tech, openwork dial. Beneath the sapphire crystal, which has an anti-reflective coating on both sides, the dial structures and gives proportion to the watch's time indicators with calculated and mathematical balance.

Perfectly symmetrical, the power reserve and retrograde date displays, positioned at 2 o'clock and at 10 o'clock, are mirror images of each other. The meticulous, hollowed-out windows offer a subtle behind-the-scenes glimpse of time; the arcs have been skeletonized for an “industrial” look, while all unnecessary decor has been avoided. Featuring boldly colored extremities, each hand has been delicately applied to the dial and slides beneath one of the numerous hollowed-out arcs that display the watch's information.

The moon phase is displayed on a precisely calibrated celestial disc positioned at 6 o'clock. This design fulfills the brand's desire to give time a more modern image. A small luminescent hand that closely resembles the hours and minutes hands indicates the day of the week on the edge of the moon-phase disc.

The technical nature of the Masterpiece Lune Retrograde extends to its simple finishes. Its dynamic, calculated, and steadfast design resembles those who have decided to appreciate time with determination and confidence rather than suffer it. A worthy heir of the brand's heritage in retrograde and moon-phase mechanisms, this model joins the ranks of the ML 150 and ML 151 movements launched in 2008, designed and developed in-house.

Technical Data
Movement
Moon Phases Retrograde Calendar Maurice Lacroix Manufacture movement ML152, equipped with its own lever assortment, gear-train and spring balance, developed, manufactured and assembled in-house.

Functions
Hours and minutes indicated by central hands, retrograde calendar indicated by hand, visible through the dial at 10 o'clock, moon phases indicated by a disc at 6 o'clock, day indicated by a hand at 6 o'clock, power reserve indicated by hand, visible through the dial at 2 o'clock, vibration 18,000 vph, 2.5 Hz, power reserve 42 hours, 37 jewels, adjustment: 5 positions when fully wound and after 24 hours.

Decoration
Hand-decorated bridges plated with black-gold and featuring large snail-like patterns and dedicated moon phases disc.

Case
Combination of polished sunray, circular- and vertical-brushed surfaces, steel, 46 mm diameter, screwed steel bezel, domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, integrated shaped push-pieces to correct functions, screw-down crown in ¼ turn, screwed case-back featuring a large sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, water resistant to 100 m / 10 atm.

Dial
Functions revealed through the skeletonized dial, main plate: slate-gray with a vertical-brushed finish, skeletonized retrograde calendar and power reserve zones, applied ring: circular-brushed with polished applied slate-gray Arabic numerals, integrated skeletonized indicators for the retrograde calendar and power reserve functions, large opening at 6 o'clock for the moon phase indication, with an integrated metal-coated sapphire crystal, applied “Maurice Lacroix” brushed cartouches.

Strap
Black hand-stitched porous crocodile skin strap with large scales, black calfskin lining, and matching stitching.

Mathias Haegglund Code Collector, Globetrotter, and Occasional Gamer.