A Breguet squelette watch with tourbillon
History
Beginnings
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; the Marie Antoinette.
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
- Classique
- Marine
- Heritage
- Type XX
- Reine de Naples - oval bezels
- Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (1780)
- Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France (1782)
- Louis XVI, King of France (1783)
- Charles de Choiseul-Praslin, Duc de Choiseul-Praslin
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Sovereign Prince of Beneventum (1787)
- Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1792)
- Joséphine de Beauharnais, French Empress (1798)
- Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor (1798)
- General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, (1801)
- George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, later George IV (1803)
- Giovanni Paisiello, Italian composer (1804)
- William, Prince of Wurttemberg, later William I of Württemberg (1805)
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer
- Selim III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1806)
- Caroline Murate, Queen of Naples (1807)
- Tsar Alexander I of Russia (1809)
- George III, King of England (1810)
- Duke of Infantado, General and main Spanish opponent of Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Prince Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov (1810)
- Prince Stanisław Poniatowski (1754–1833), Polish Prince (1811)
- Prince Ferdinand of Spain, later Ferdinand VII of Spain (1812)
- Infante Carlos, Count of Molina, Prince of Spain (1812)
- Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer, swiss banker (1812)
- Michel Ney, Marshal of France (1813)
- Archduchess Maria Luisa of Austria, Empress of France (1813)
- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1814)
- George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough (1818)
- Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk (1821)
- Louis XVIII, King of France (1821)
- Count Axel von Fersen, Swedish diplomat (1835)
- Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (1838)
- George Washington, 1st American President
- Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Duc de Morny (1841)
- Gioachino Rossini, italian composer (1843)
- Horace Vernet, french painter (1855)
- Philippe, Comte de Paris (1863)
- Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1901)
- Fuad I, was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. (1924)
- Arthur Rubinstein, Master pianist (1930)
- Sergei Rachmaninoff, Composer (1931)
- Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti, founder of the automobile company (1932)
- Prince George of Greece and Denmark (1934)
- Edward VIII, later The Duke of Windsor (1950)
- Lola Astanova, Virtuoso pianist
- Nicolas Sarkozy, French president
- Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president
- Leo Tolstoy, Russian author
- Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate
- Victor Hugo, writer
- Charles, Prince of Wales, English heir to the throne
- Maestro Valery Gergiev, Russia
- Kirill I of Moscow, Russian Orthodox bishop who has been Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus.
- Olek Boyko, investor, Kiev
- Ainārs Šlesers, Vice-Mayor of Riga, Latvia
- Dr. Lorrain, famous Petersburg doctor, in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
- Hadji Murad, in Leo Tolstoy's Hadji Murad
- Dr. Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series
- Baron Danglars from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo
- Viscount Albert de Morcerf from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo
- 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).
- Eugène de Rastignac in Honoré de Balzac's Le Père Goriot. The watch was a gift from Goriot's daughter, Delphine.
- Monique Lamont in the Win Garano series by Patricia Cornwell
