Breguet (watch)

Infobox_Company
company_name = Breguet SA

company_type = Member of the Swatch Group
company_
company_slogan =
foundation = 1775 by Abraham Louis Breguet
location_city = Vallée de Joux
location_country = Switzerland
key_people = Abraham Louis Breguet, founder
industry = Watch manufacturing
products =
homepage = [http://www.breguet.ch http://www.breguet.ch]

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').

History

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:
* A Clock
* A Perpetual Calendar
* A Repeater
* A Thermometer
* A Chronograph
* A Power-Reserve
* A [http://www.breguet.com/en/manufacture/inventions/pare.php Pare-Chute]

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 Islamic Museum in Jerusalem - Israel, having been donated as part of the David Lionel Salomens collection. It was stolen by burglars with many other watches-and recently been recovered, though official confirmation is still lacking.

Collections

"Gentleman'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

"Lady's:" (mainly distinguished by diamonds)
*Classique
*Marine
*Heritage
*Type XX
*Reine de Naples - oval bezels

Breguet's distinguished patrons:

*Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
*Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France
*Louis XVI, King of France
*Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Sovereign Prince of Beneventum
*Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet
*Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor
*General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc ,
*George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, later George IV
*William, Prince of Wurttemberg, later William I of Württemberg
*Joséphine de Beauharnais, French Empress
*Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer
*Selim III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
*Caroline Murate, Queen of Naples
*Tsar Alexander I of Russia
*George III, King of England
*Prince Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov
*Prince Stanisław Poniatowski (1754–1833), Polish Prince
*Prince Ferdinand of Spain, later Ferdinand VII of Spain
*Infante Carlos, Count of Molina , Prince of Spain
*Michel Ney, Marshal of France
*Archduchess Maria Luisa of Austria , Empress of France
*George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough
*Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
*Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk
*Louis XVIII , King of France
*Count Axel von Fersen, Swedish diplomat
*Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
*George Washington, 1st American President
*Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Duc de Morny
*Philippe, Comte de Paris
*Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
*Fuad I, was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur.
*Arthur Rubinstein, Master pianist
*Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti, founder of the automobile company
*Sergei Rachmaninoff, Composer
*Prince George of Greece and Denmark
*Edward VIII , later The Duke of Windsor
*Lola Astanova, Virtuoso pianist
*Nicolas Sarkozy, French president
*Leo Tolstoy, Russian author
*Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate
*Victor Hugo, writer
*Maestro Valery Gergiev, Russian conductor

"Fictional owners:"
* Dr. Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's "Napoleonic War" novels
* Baron Danglars from Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo"
* Phileas Fogg from Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"
* Eugene Onegin in Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"
* Gerald Duncan in Jeffery Deaver's "The Cold Moon"
* Nicholas Fandorin in Boris Akunin's series of adventure novels. The watch was a gift from the Czar (King).

Trivia

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

External links

* [http://www.breguet.ch Official Site]
* [http://www.myspace.com/montresbreguet MySpace fan page]
* [http://users.tpg.com.au/wookie99/breguetwatches.html Breguet Watch Index] A handy quick reference of Breguet watches, listed by calibre, power reserve, case material, water resistance, diameter, thickness(height) and model number.