Thursday, July 17, 2008

Breguet - The Inventor of Inventors

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The question that is often asked when it comes to horology is who made the first wrist watch? The credit for that goes to Abraham-Louis Breguet who founded his business in 1775 and made the first wristwatch in 1812.

Napolean Bonaparte’s sister, Caroline who became Queen of Naples was already familiar with Breguet. After all, Queen Marie-Antoinette was already possessing several unique self-winding watches from Breguet. Louis the XVI too was a great collector of Breguet watches. However, it was Queen Caroline of Naples, who on June 8, 1810, commissioned Breguet to craft for her, the world’s first ‘wristwatch’.

Breguet took two and a half years to produce the legendary wristwatch that carried the number ‘2639′. The watch had unprecedented sophistication consisting of a repeating watch, oblong in shape and exceptionally slender. The wrist band was made out of human hair, intertwined with gold thread.

Those were the days of monarchies around the world. Royalties loved Breguet. Other than Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, Napolean Bonaparte, Talleyrand, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Queen Victoria, all owned a Breguet watch. Queen Victoria purchased a Breguet in 1838, barely one year after her ascent to the throne. Sir Winston Churchill bought his first Breguet in 1901 and Arthur Rubinstein bought his first in 1930.

Breguet caught the imagination of authors and writers. Stendhal, Pushkin, Balzac, Alexander Dumas, Thackrey and Victor Hugo have all made references to Breguet in their works.

The story goes that both Wellington and Napolean, consulted their Breguet watch during the battle of Waterloo!

Abraham-Louis Breguet, who was a student of mathematics, did his apprentice as a watchmaker and married the daughter of a prosperous French nobleman. Her dowry provided for financing Breguet’s watch making workshop in 1775. Abraham-Louis Breguet produced watches till his death in 1823, till he was 76 years old. This, almost half-century between 1775 and 1823 can be called the ‘golden age’ in the world of horology. It would appear that almost everything that had to be invented in horology was done during this period. Abraham-Louis Breguet was a shining amour of all the inventions. By 1780, Breguet had made the first self-winding watch known as ‘Perpetuelles’ those days. By 1783, he invented the famous ‘Blue Breguet hands’ and one with Arabic numerals known as ‘Breguet numerals’. By 1789, he invented the Ratchet key known as the ‘Breguet key’. He forgot to file a patent for ‘Breguet key’ and over the next ten years, many watch makers copied his Ratchet key concept. ‘Tourbillon’, which continues to be an object of imagination even today was invented by Breguet in 1801.

One of the last inventions of Abraham-Louis Breguet was a ‘Chronograph’. Breguet defined Chronograph as the one that permitted the precise measurement of intermediate periods or the length of time taken by two simultaneous events.

After the death of Abraham-Louis Breguet, his nephew ran the business in partnership with an Englishman, Edward Brown, who later became the sole-owner of the house of Breguet. Next century saw a series of owners till the Parisian jewellery brothers, Chaumet bought the company in 1968. Finally, destiny took the house of Breguet to be part of the Swatch Group headed by Nicolas G. Hayek in 1999.

Almost to prove that inventors carry a different genetic structure, Abraham-Louis’ great great grandson Louie Breguet (1880 – 1955) built the first manned helicopter. After a while Louie Breguet build cockpit watches which are still used in airlines. Unlike his great great grandfather, Louie Breguet didn’t make watches for the public.

Product range
‘Breguet Classique’ models continue to be in design, using the principles of the founder. They are ultra-thin, hand-wound or self-winding, Chronograph or Tourbillons. The cases are easily recognised by their coin-edge design and famous blue-hands.

Breguet’s Marine watches are based on the models supplied to the French Navy. Its largest selling models, Type XX and Aeronavale, maintain the design philosophy of the watch development for French Naval Air Services.

Not to forget that the first wristwatch ever made was for a lady; Breguet named its ladies range as ‘Reine de Naples’. Reine de Naples Cammea wristwatch is in 18 karat white gold, self-winding, bezel set with 40 diamonds, crown set with a one-fourth carat ‘briolette’ diamond. The dial with cameo is carved out of a natural seashell with 18-carat gold rotor, hand-engraved on a rose-engine, set with natural mother-of-pearl and has 40 hours power-reserve. Sapphire-crystal caseback. The strap is chocolate colour alligator with folding clasp set with 26 diamonds and comes with a sapphire-crystal caseback. Look for a Cammea if you are looking for sophistication.

Finally, a quaint Breguet story
In 1983, Queen Marie-Antoinette’s Breguet watch got stolen from a Jerusalem museum. In 2005, Nicolas G. Hayek challenged himself to precisely produce a second Queen Marie-Antoinette watch that was stolen. As Hayek’s replica watch was nearing completion in 2007, the spoils of the 1983 robbery suddenly reappeared in Jerusalem.

*(This was published originally in Smartbuy, a supplement of BusinessLine on June 18, 2008)

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