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').
History
BeginningsBreguet 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. This beautiful watch is now part of the watch collection at the Islamic Museum in Jerusalem - Israel.
Marie Antoinette never lived to see the watch, as it was completed 34 years later, long after she was executed. This beautiful watch is now part of the watch collection at the Islamic Museum in Jerusalem - Israel.
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: (mainly 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 Danglars 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
