Breguet Exhibition at the Louvre Museum

Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Breguet completed his

apprenticeship and studies in France from 1762 onwards. In 1775,

at the age of 28, he married and managed to establish his own

business on the Quai de l’Horloge, Paris. Watchmakers of the

French capital then competed with Geneva and London in the

field of scientific and artistic innovation. Breguet explored and

perfected these inventions and complications. But he was not

recognized as a Master Watchmaker until 1784.

These intervening years saw the gradual development of the

automatic (or self-winding) watch and a timepiece with a repeater

(or chiming mechanism). The first self-winding watches were

purchased by Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and several highranking

personalities at the court of Versailles. This led, in 1783,

to Breguet receiving a commission for an extraordinary watch

incorporating all the innovations and complications known at the

time. The end result would be one of the most famous of all

Breguet watches, No. 160, also called the “Marie-Antoinette”,

which, after several lengthy interruptions, was eventually finished

in 1827, i.e. four years after Abraham-Louis Breguet’s death.

These watches immediately reveal the originality of his style,

characterized by functional simplicity, technical mastery and

flawless craftsmanship. His flat watchcases, easily legible

numerals, rectilinear hands and guilloched dials made Breguet

watches both unique works of art and discreet, practical, everyday

objects, unlike the ornate, ostentatious timepieces made in the last

quarter of the 18th century.

During the Revolutionary period, Breguet made regular trips to

England, where he shared the fruit of his research with the

watchmaker John Arnold, while enlarging his clientele, which

already included the Prince of Wales. In 1793, fearing the

consequences of his former relationship with members of the

Court and his moderate ideas, Breguet returned to Switzerland.

He pursued his research, while striving to run what was left of his

Parisian workshops from across the Alps.

again with new models, notably a simple watch with one hand,

known as the “subscription watch” (an advance deposit of a

quarter of the price was paid when the order was placed),

launched with the aid of an advertising leaflet. This revealed the

subtle balance between the researcher and the entrepreneur, who

combined constantly updated unique models with functional

timepieces. In 1796, Breguet invented a new type of travel clock

that went on functioning during transportion. General Bonaparte

purchased the first one to take on his Egyptian campaign.

Thus began a thriving period for the House of Breguet, in terms

of both sales and inventions, which seemed to spur one another

on. Pure research and applied art always fused in Breguet’s work.

The first patent he registered for one of his inventions was in

1798 for constant force escapement (the mechanism of the watch

is driven by a rigorous constant force). Shown at France’s First

Exhibition of Industrial Products (1798), in a travel clock and a

metronome, it won Breguet a gold medal. The following year his

“tact watch”, which enabled the wearer to tell the time by

touching the watch face, was launched on the market. At France’s

Third Exhibition (1802), the House of Breguet attracted a military

clientele on presenting its “deck watch” and “Longitude watch”,

while in 1806, the public were introduced to the “tourbillon

regulator” (device that neutralizes the effects of gravity on the

workings of watch movements).

Although kept in the background by Napoleon I, Breguet received

orders from the imperial court and his entourage. Always ahead

of its time, the company also exported its timepieces through a

network in and outside of Europe, having understood at an early

date that its survival depended on becoming international.

England, Spain and Russia were its principal foreign markets, but

the political situation at the end of the Empire slowed down

Breguet’s activity considerably. To compensate for the markets it

lost, the company developed its sales in the Ottoman Empire by

adapting its models to Turkish tastes.

When the Bourbons returned to power, the House of Breguet saw

a spectacular turnaround in its activity. Its European clientele

reburgeoned and included loyal customers such as Tsar

Alexander I of Russia and King George IV of England.

Prestigious timepieces once owned by them will be on display in

this exhibition. In France, Louis XVIII publicly displayed his

respect for Breguet by appointing him Watchmaker to the Royal

Navy in 1815 and awarding him a seat in the Academy of

Sciences in 1816. At the Exhibition of 1819, as member of the

jury, Breguet presented a retrospective of his clockmaking career,

during which he had raised this precision craft to a degree of

unprecedented excellence. The reliability and streamlined designs

of his timepieces were far ahead of his era and already belonged

to modernity. This tradition lives on at Breguet today in

innovative timepieces, thus confirming their precursory status that

bears witness to European culture and history.

Face of the small medallion “tact watch”.

Sold to Josephine Bonaparte on 18 February 1800.

Collection Montres Breguet S.A.

© Montres Breguet S.A.