Breguet Watches
Written by James Matthews
Breguet is a manufacturer of fine watches, founded by Abraham Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Currently part of The Swatch Group, its timepieces are now (since 1976) produced in the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland. Breguet is one of the oldest surviving watch-making establishments and is the pioneer of numerous watch-making technologies, the most famous being the tourbillon, invented by Abraham Louis Breguet. Breguet has recently introduced a line of writing instruments as a tribute to writers who mention or feature Breguet watches in their works. Breguet watches are often easily recognized for their coin-edge cases, fine guilloché dials and distinctive blue pomme hands (often now referred to as ‘Breguet hands’).
* 1 History
o 1.1 Beginnings
o 1.2 Company Timeline
o 1.3 Collections
o 1.4 Notable owners
* 2 Trivia
* 3 External links
History
Beginnings
Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet at the quai de l’Horloge on the Ile de la Cite following his marriage to the daughter of a prosperous French bourgeois. Her dowry provided the “financing” which allowed him to open his own workshop. The connections Breguet had made with scholarly people during his apprenticeship as a watchmaker and as a student of mathematics soon paid off with spectacular results. Following his introduction to the court, whereupon Queen Marie-Antoinette grew fascinated by Breguet’s unique self-winding watch, Louis XVI had bought several of his watches. Marie Antoinette would commission the famous watch that was to contain every single watch function known to man at the time, including the following:
* A Clock
* A Perpetual Calendar
* A Repeater
* A Thermometer
* A Chronograph
* A Power-Reserve
* A Pare-Chute
Marie Antoinette never lived to see the watch, as it was completed 34 years later, long after she was executed.
Company Timeline
* 1775 – Founded in Paris by A. L. Breguet
* 1780 – Launch of its first self winding watch known as the “Perpetuelle”
* 1790 – Invention of the Pare-Chute, an anti-shock device
* 1801 – Patent of the Tourbillon Regulator
* 1870 – Bought from the descendants of Breguet by E. Brown Jewelers, London
* 1970 – Bought by Chaumet Jewelers
* 1987 – Bought from Chaumet, during bankruptcy, by Investcorp
* 1991 – Valdar was bought, and folded into Groupe Horloger Breguet (GHB), still under the ownership of Investcorp
* 1992 – Nouvelle Lemania, a manufacture of watch movements, was brought into GHB
* 1999, September 4 – Swatch group announces plans for the purchase of GHB
Collections
Gentleman’s:
* Classique: Simple, Grandes Complications – popular round-bezel pieces
* Marine – water-resistant, often with non-metal straps
* Heritage – rectangular bezels
* Type XX – sturdy, based on WWII-era pilots watches
* La Tradition – similar to the long gone Souscription by Breguet
Lady’s:(many distinguished by diamonds)
* Classique
* Marine
* Heritage
* Type XX
* Reine de Naples – oval bezels
Breguet also makes clocks, jewelry (for women), and writing instruments/cases, as a tribute to the authors who incorporated the watches into their works.
Notable owners
* Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France
* Louis XVI, King of France
* Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French Explorer
* Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French
* Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
* Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento
* Count Axel von Fersen, Swedish diplomat
* Joséphine de Beauharnais, Empress of the French
* Selim III, sultan of the Ottoman Empire
* Caroline Murate, Queen of Naples
* Tsar Alexander I of Russia
* Michel Ney, Marshal of France
* George Washington, 1st American President
* Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
* Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
* Arthur Rubinstein, Master pianist
* Sergei Rachmaninoff, Composer
* Lola Astanova, Virtuoso pianist
* Nicolas Sarkozy, French president
* Leo Tolstoy, Russian author
* Maestro Valery Gergiev, Russian Conductor
Fictional owners:
* Dr. Stephen Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic War novels
* Baron d’Anglars from Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo
* Phileas Fogg from Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days
* Eugene Onegin in Alexander Pushkin’s Onegin
* Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho
Trivia
Breguet offered a piece to navigator Bougainville as he was organizing his great expedition to the North Pole.
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This post was written by James Matthews. If you have any questions or comments you may contact him at james@jewelerslounge.com
