Known for his daring, almost ostentatious designs, Franck Muller started his career producing watches inspired from his days restoring some of the rarest and most complicated watches of the past. Muller is also part of the fantastic group of young watchmakers – along with Roth, Dubuis, and Halter- who had decided to go independent. He would launch his eponymous brand in 1991.

One of his first creations was a double-sided chronograph inspired by the Patek Philippe ref 1463 “Tasti Tondi”. He reimagined the chronograph by placing an oversized seconds counter on the reverse of the watch, a complication most commonly found on pocket watches. He later incorporated this, in a more limited series, in his signature Cintrée Curvex case, such as the present watch. Fitted with the manually-wound Lemania caliber 1872/1873, it is the rarest variant of Muller’s highly sought after double-faced chronograph.

The front features a conventional, guilloche dial with chronograph registers, while the back has an oversized, one-minute register with center seconds as well as a pulsometer, tachymeter and telemeter, operated by the chronograph buttons. Due to its large display, the scales are significantly easier to read than on an ordinary chronograph.

According to Nicholas Rudaz, CEO of Franck Muller, these double-sided chronographs were all commissioned by an Italian retailer in the 1990s. They were made in a small series of approximately 40 to 50 examples. The present example is numbered 17, though numbers have been seen to 32.