Master Control, Master Ultra Thin Réserve de Marche and Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon: Three great classics in the watchmaking avant-garde. At the SIHH 2012, the Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre presents three new timepieces in its Master Control line, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It was indeed in 1992 that the Grande Maison in the Vallée de Joux introduced this classically inspired line named after a merciless set of tests, the 1000 Hours Control, introduced that same year in order to guarantee the reliability, the sturdiness and the precision of its timepieces, even in the most extreme conditions. Since 1833, watchmaking inventiveness has had a firm home base in the Vallée de Joux. That was the year the brilliant young Antoine Lecoultre founded his own establishment in Le Sentier, dedicated to the production of horological components. He had just developed a revolutionary machine designed to cut pinions, a key element of watch mechanisms. It represented a decisive breakthrough that paved the way for movement standardisation and series production. This first venture off the beaten track set an invaluable precedent, and remains an enduring source of inspiration for the founders’ successors. Antoine LeCoultre did not take the success with which his first efforts were rewarded as an encouragement to rest on his laurels – quite the contrary. He extended production to encompass other timepiece components and constantly sought out new means of enhancing production quality. Barely ten years went by before he developed the millionometer, the first instrument capable of making micron-accurate measurements corresponding to one millionth of a metre. The invention was to have a considerable impact in that, as well as ensuring greatly improved precision, it also served to incorporate within pocket-watches certain horological complications that previous generations could only dream of. The new accomplishments generated great enthusiasm and the Vallée de Joux, the cradle of Fine Watchmaking, soon earned the nickname of the “Valley of Complications” – a title that has remained unchallenged ever since. Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon, the hegemony of the tourbillon The pink gold case frames a dial on which the observer’s gaze is inexorably drawn towards the tourbillon at 6 o’clock. This imposing and majestic device testifies to the exceptional precision of the Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon, as well as to the inventive strength of the Manufacture that propelled the tourbillon, invented in the latter years of the 18th century, firmly into the 21st century.