The return of the medium-size Golden Ellipse to the regular collection is, in the context of 2026 Patek Philippe production, among the most meaningful events in the 5738's design history — not because the medium size has been absent from production in any absolute sense, but because its return as a regular catalog reference signals a reappraisal of the Golden Ellipse's scale range and a recognition that the collection's design logic operates differently at 31.1 by 35.6 millimeters than it does at the large format's 34.5 by 39.5. The reference 3738/100G-014, introduced alongside its larger sibling the 5738G-001 in the same white gold and olive green configuration, is the companion that Patek Philippe has suggested may be worn as a pair with the 5738G-001 — and it is, simultaneously, the more independent and the more formally interesting of the two, because the medium size's proportional relationships are distinct from the large size's in ways that change the Golden Ellipse's character rather than merely scaling it.
At 31.1 by 35.6 millimeters, the medium Golden Ellipse occupies the scale range where the golden-ratio oval produces its most concentrated formal effect. The golden ratio's proportion — the longer axis to the shorter in the ratio of approximately 1.618 to 1 — is mathematically invariant regardless of case dimensions: the same proportion defines both the large and medium sizes. But proportion and scale are not the same experience. At the medium size, the oval's two axes are closer together in absolute dimension, and the resulting form is simultaneously smaller and more oval — the shape reads as an oval more immediately at 31.1 by 35.6 than at 34.5 by 39.5, because at the larger scale the additional millimeters in each axis produce a form whose oval character is less concentrated. The medium format also has a specific wrist quality that the large format cannot replicate: the watch settles into the wrist profile with a completeness that watches within a certain absolute size range achieve, the oval's horizontal span matching the visual width of many wrists with a precision that makes the watch appear to belong there rather than to occupy the wrist as a placed object. This is a quality specific to this scale and this form, and it is not available at the large format's dimensions regardless of the proportion's mathematical identity.
The case is 18-karat white gold, entirely polished, at the medium dimensions. At 5.9 millimeters in height — identical to the large 5738G-001 — the case achieves the same ultra-thin quality within a smaller total footprint, the result a watch that is thinner relative to its own surface area than even the large format: the 5.9 millimeters of height against 31.1 by 35.6 millimeters of case face produces a depth-to-surface ratio that makes the watch's physical flatness more perceptible than at the large format's slightly greater dimensions. This quality — a watch that is emphatically flat, that resolves visually into a surface of precious metal and dial color more than into a three-dimensional object — is the medium Golden Ellipse's most immediate physical characteristic. The solid case back is standard across the Golden Ellipse 5738 and 3738 families. The crown at three o'clock manages winding and time setting.
The sunburst olive green dial — the same color as the 5738G-001, produced to the same specification on the same 18-karat gold dial plate — reads differently at medium size for the same reasons that the case form reads differently: the radial variation of the sunburst finish is compressed into a smaller surface, the gradient from warm, bright center to cooler, deeper perimeter covering a shorter radial distance and therefore appearing more concentrated. At the medium size, the olive green's characteristic light behavior — its tonal shifts across warm-and-yellow to cool-and-deep as the wrist moves — happens more rapidly as the eye travels from center to edge, the dial's full tonal range present within a smaller field. This concentration gives the medium 3738's dial a quality of intensity that the large 5738's more expansive surface distributes more broadly: the same color, the same finish, but a different chromatic experience determined entirely by the scale at which the finish operates.
The applied white gold baton-style hour markers are scaled to the medium dial's dimensions, their absolute size smaller than the large format's markers but their proportion to the total dial area maintained. At medium scale, the markers' relationship to the surrounding olive green field is more intimate — the space between adjacent markers is physically shorter, the markers and their surrounding color in closer visual proximity. This spatial compression gives the dial a higher visual density than the large format achieves at the same hour positions, and that density is experienced as attention: the medium dial rewards close looking in a way that the large format's more expansive composition does not require. The white gold cheveu-style hands sweep the olive green ground with the same gossamer delicacy as in the large format, their slenderness calibrated to the medium dial's scale as independently as the markers' dimensions.
The movement is the Calibre 240, shared with the large format 5738G-001 and carrying the same specifications: 2.53 millimeters of total movement height, 22-karat gold off-center mini-rotor, Gyromax balance, Spiromax silicon hairspring, 48-hour minimum power reserve, 21,600 vibrations per hour, 27 jewels, 152 parts, Patek Philippe Seal. The movement's ultra-thin architecture is the enabling condition of the 5.9-millimeter case height at both formats; its performance is maintained without modification regardless of case scale.
The shiny olive green calfskin strap with contrasting cream stitching extends the dial color to the wrist in the tone-on-tone manner established for this reference family. At medium case dimensions, the strap's width relative to the case's lug spread produces a specific visual relationship — the strap appears proportionally wider at the lug than at the large format, the transition from case to strap occupying a smaller gap and contributing to the sense that the watch and strap constitute a single continuous object rather than a case suspended between two strap attachments. This is a subtle quality, but it contributes to the medium Golden Ellipse's overall impression of integration and completeness. The white gold prong buckle provides the material consistency.
The collector relationship between the 3738/100G-014 and the 5738G-001 is worth examining directly, because Patek Philippe's suggestion that they may be worn as a pair creates a framing that could inadvertently position the medium size as secondary. It is not. The medium Golden Ellipse is a complete and independently excellent expression of the design whose specific scale qualities — the concentrated proportions, the depth-to-surface ratio, the intimate dial density, the wrist settlement — are not available in the large format. For the collector who has worn both sizes and found the large format's dimensions the more comfortable or the more personally resonant, the large format is the right choice. For the collector who has found the medium size's specific qualities — its flatness and concentration, its oval that reads as completely oval — more compelling, the 3738/100G-014 is not the smaller companion but the primary expression, and the large format is the alternative that offers what the medium size deliberately does not. The two watches are not better and worse, or main and secondary. They are the same design at the two scales where the golden-ratio oval produces its most resolved expressions, and each is the correct choice for the collector who has arrived at it through genuine acquaintance with both.
