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Abraham Louis Breguet

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

Statue of Abraham Louis Breguet in the Père Lachaise cemetery

Abraham-Louis Breguet or Bréguet (10 January 1747 – 17 September 1823), born in Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was a horologist who made many innovations in the course of a career in watchmaking in France.

[edit] History

He was a Swiss clockmaker, established in Paris. He studied watchmaking in France and in England and invented different escapement methods, including the tourbillon, re-winding mechanisms, and the overcoil (an improvement of the balance spring with a raised outer coil). In 1775 he founded the Breguet watchmaking firm in the Île de la Cité in Paris. He met Abraham Louis Perrelet in Switzerland and became a Master Clockmaker in 1784. A Member of the Board of Longitude in 1814. Appointed to the Board of Longitude and as chronometer-maker to the navy, he entered the French Academy of Sciences and received the Legion of Honour from the hands of Louis XVIII. In 1815 he gained an official appointment with the French Navy. Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1816, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1819. He died in Paris in 1823.

Early enthusiasts of Breguet's watchmaking were also Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie-Antoinette. It was one of his pocket watches called "The watch of Marie-Antoniette" which he produced for the Queen and had the most mechanical complications at that period. It was finished 4 years after Breguet's death. Breguet designed his most remarkable piece, anticipating the wristwatch by two centuries for Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples, in 1810. Honours saluted his enormous contribution to horology. Each watch from his workshops demonstrated the latest horological improvements in an original movement, mostly fitted with lever or ruby-cylinder escapements that he perfected. Breguet took refuge in Switzerland from the excesses of the French Revolution. He returned to Paris overflowing with the ideas that produced the Breguet balance-spring, his first carriage clock (sold to Bonaparte), the sympathique clock and its dependent watch, the tact watch, and finally the tourbillon, patented in 1801.^[1]

Apart from the very start of his career, Abraham-Louis Breguet almost always used Lépine calibres, which he transformed. His watches and clocks are widely regarded as some of the most beautiful and technically-accomplished.

[edit] Timeline of his works ^[2]

• 1775-1780 Improved the automatic rotor or so-called perpetual watch.
• 1783 Invented the gong-spring for repetition watches. Design of apple-shaped so-called “Breguet” hands and Arabic numerals called “Breguet numerals”.
• 1787 Adoption and improvement of the anchor escapement. Abraham-Louis Breguet used it in its definitive form from 1814 (this form is still in use).
• 1793 Development of a small clock showing the time equation.
• 1790 Invented the “pare-chute” anti-shock device.
• 1794 Invention of a retrograde display mechanism.
• 1795 Invented the Breguet spiral (flat spiral).
• 1795 Invention of the sympathetic pendulum which resets a special clock once the latter has been coupled with the pendulum mechanism.
• 1799 Invented the tact watch.
• 1801 Patent for the tourbillon escapement, developed circa 1795.
• 1821 Development of the “encreur” chronograph, in partnership with Frédérick Louis Fatton.

Generally speaking, Abraham-Louis Breguet was distinguished for the first attention paid to aesthetic watch design.

[edit] See also

• Breguet (watch)
• Tourbillon
• Horology

[edit] External links

• Official Breguet watchmakers website
• Works by or about Abraham Louis Breguet in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Breguet's History (in French and English language)

[edit] References

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