From a collection Inspired by the first wristwatch created by A.-L. Breguet for Caroline Murat in 1810, the new Reine de Naples Mini 8928.
The newly updated“ Breguet, Watchmakers Since 1775.”
watchmaking that Breguet influenced or invented.
As noted, much of what Breguet has learned about his family business he has gleaned from the extensive set of archives.
During a recent tour of the Paris museum with Mr. Breguet, he retrieved several original leather-bound volumes from the walk-in vault. As Emmanuel turned the pages, I gasped several times. There, recorded in ink and by quill, are sales orders from historical figures like Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington and Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
One of the most famous entries is for repeating watch No. 179, requested by Marie Antoinette from her prison cell in 1792. It was delivered in September that year and said to have been the watch by which the French royal family marked their final days.
AUTHOR Emmanuel Breguet’ s role at his namesake company expanded considerably after the Swatch Group purchased Breguet in 1999. Legendary Swatch Group CEO Nicolas Hayek loved the brand and asked Breguet to continue to research his family’ s history. Breguet then updated his 1997 book,“ Breguet, Watchmakers Since 1775,” in 2001 and again in early 2017. With each edition he added new details about Breguet’ s inventions and with seemingly forgotten information about individual watches.
Breguet notably discovered during his research that
Abraham-Louis Breguet made what the brand deems the first wristwatch( a small quarter repeater with thermometer, watch number 2639). It was delivered in 1812 the Caroline Murat, the younger sister of Napoleon I and the Queen of Naples.
In his book, Breguet explains that the piece required two-and-a-half years to make and“ was of revolutionary construction and unprecedented sophistication, consisting of a repeating watch with the additional refinements, oblong and exceptionally slender, with a wristlet made of hair intertwined with gold thread. Did anyone in Quai de l’ Horloge workshops suspect the future of that late in store for the wristwatch? Almost certainly not.”
One possible reason for the delay in recognizing that the piece was designed for a wristlet is that the watch itself is still in private hands and hasn’ t been seen publically for many years.
Murat was an extremely influential Breguet client, and would purchase thirty-four timepieces from him over a tenyear period.
Breguet has also confirmed that Antoine, son of Abraham- Louis Breguet, devised the modern winding crown in 1830, though the invention was not patented at the time but was instead patented a decade later by someone else.
The Breguet Museum in Paris is located at 6 Place Vendôme and is open each weekday from 10:30 a. m. to 6:30 p. m. Additional museums are located in Zurich( on Bahnhofstrasse 31) and at the Breguet boutique at the Langham Hotel in Shanghai.
In the next issue of iW, we’ ll take a look inside the Breguet manufacture in the Vallée de Joux.
Early A. L. Breguet notes, at the Breguet museum above the boutique in Place Vendome.
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