Breguet (watch)

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Breguet SA
Type Member of the Swatch Group
Founded 1775 by Abraham Louis Breguet
Headquarters Vallée de Joux, Switzerland
Key people Abraham Louis Breguet, founder
Industry Watch manufacturing
Website http://www.breguet.ch
A Breguet squelette watch with tourbillon
Breguet MG 2575.jpg

Breguet is a manufacturer of luxury 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 notable 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, guilloché dials and blue pomme hands (often now referred to as 'Breguet hands').

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Beginnings

Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet at the Quai de l'Horloge on the Ile de la Cite in Paris 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. Following his introduction to the court, whereupon Queen Marie-Antoinette grew fascinated by Breguet's unique self-winding watch, Louis XVI bought several of his watches. Marie Antoinette commissioned the watch that was to contain every watch function known at that time, including the following:

Marie Antoinette never lived to see the watch, as it was completed 34 years later, long after she had been executed. This watch was part of the watch collection at the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art in Jerusalem - Israel, having been donated as part of the David Lionel Salomons collection. It was stolen by renowned master-thief Na'aman Diller with many other watches - although it has recently been recovered.[1]

[edit] Collections

Breguet watch (1785), bought by the Duc de Choiseul-Praslin. Musée des Arts et Métiers.

Gentlemen's:

  • Classique: Simple, Grandes Complications - popular round pieces, usually with reeded bezels and soldered lugs
  • Marine - water-resistant, distinguished by the presence of crown guards.
  • Heritage - tonneau-shaped cases
  • Type XX,XXI - sturdy chronographs, based on WWII-era pilots watches.
  • La Tradition - similar to the long gone Souscription by Breguet, open-faced watches with the movement on the front, along with a small face

Women's: (mainly distinguished by diamonds)

  • Classique
  • Marine
  • Heritage
  • Type XX
  • Reine de Naples - oval bezels

Breguet's distinguished patrons:

Fictional owners:

[edit] Trivia

Breguet offered a piece to navigator Bougainville as he was organizing his great expedition to the North Pole.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Alix Kirsta (2009-04-15). "Breguet No106 watch: The queen, her watch and the master burglar". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/5158497/Breguet-No106-watch-The-queen-her-watch-and-the-master-burglar.html. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch)"