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 watches are often easily recognized for their coin-edge cases, guilloché dials and blue pomme hands (often now referred to as ‘Breguet hands’).

Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet at the Quai de l’Horloge on the Île de la Cité 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:

• Clock
• Perpetual calendar
• Repeater
• Thermometer
• Chronograph
• Power-Reserve
• Pare-Chute

Marie Antoinette never lived to see the watch, as it was completed 34 years 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.

Collections

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 World War II-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:

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

Breguet Collection

Breguet Movements