Montres Breguet
Montres Breguet SA
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legal form | Corporation |
founding | 1775 |
Seat | L'Abbaye , Switzerland |
management | Marc A. Hayek ( CEO ) Nayla Hayek ( Chairman of the Board ) |
Branch | Watch manufacturer |
Website | www.breguet.com |
The watch manufacturer Montres Breguet was founded in 1775 by the watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet and was based in Paris for a long time . Today the company is based in L'Abbaye , Switzerland and is part of the Swatch Group .
history
In 1780, shortly after Abraham-Louis Perrelet and Hubert Sarton , Breguet manufactured his first clocks with an automatic winding mechanism using a flywheel . The first pocket watches with an integrated gong (for the acoustic time display) were built by Breguet in 1783 . In 1790 , the manufacture attracted attention with the “pare-chute”, a forerunner of shock protection . Breguet received a patent for the invention of the tourbillon from the French Ministry of the Interior in 1801 . With the first real wristwatch , which was built between 1810 and 1812, Breguet was a pioneer of the modern watch as a constant companion.
Since Breguet's watches became world famous, counterfeits bearing his name soon appeared. Therefore, in 1795, Breguet began to apply a secret signature to the dials of his watches. The so-called Breguet spiral became very well known among experts . It is a specially shaped hairspring of the balance , in which the last spiral wrap is, thanks to two knee-shaped bends, slightly above the hairspring, which allows the hairspring to "breathe" concentrically.
Breguet watches represent top technical products in the top price segment. The moon phase calendar of the "Classique" model is valid for 1050 years, the watch consists of approx. 2500 individual parts and costs (as of 2012) approx. € 300,000.
The manufacture remained family-owned until 1870, when it was taken over by the workshop boss at the time, Edward Brown. Edward Brown's family sold Breguet to the jeweler Chaumet in 1970 . In 1987 Breguet became the property of the London-based finance company Investcorp . Groupe Breguet was founded under Investcorp , to which the companies Montres Breguet SA , Montres Jaquet-Droz SA , Valdar SA and Nouvelle Lemania SA belonged. In 1999, Breguet was taken over by the Swatch Group .
At the time of the takeover, Breguet was selling around 4,000 watches a year with annual sales of around 40 million Swiss francs. In 2006 the number of watches sold rose to 22,000 a year with a turnover of 400 million Swiss francs . When building the watch movements, Breguet also uses parts made of silicon , e.g. B. Balance springs, a.
Historically important buyers of Breguet watches
- Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821), French Emperor, three pocket watches, a table clock No. 178, bought 1798
- Joseph Bonaparte , King of Naples and later Spain, a pocket watch
- Louis Bonaparte , King of Holland, a pocket watch
- Lucien Bonaparte , Prince of Canino, a pocket watch
- Jérôme Bonaparte , King of Westphalia, a pocket watch
- Pauline Bonaparte , Princess Borghese, a pocket watch
- Elisa Bonaparte , Grand Duchess of Tuscany, a pocket watch
- George IV (1762–1830), King of Great Britain, pocket watch no. 921, bought 1803
- Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766–1841), British diplomat, pocket watch No. 1193, bought 1803
- Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), German naturalist, pocket watch "Garde-temps", no. 147, bought 1805
- Caroline Murat , Queen of Naples, a Grande Complication carriage watch and the first wristwatch No. 2639, bought in 1812
- Michel Ney (1769–1815), Marshal of France, pocket watch no. 2121, bought in 1813
- Charles Baudin (1784-1854), French admiral, Chronometer No. 3230, bought in 1827
- Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Italian composer, Chronometer No. 4604, bought in 1843
- Friedrich Wilhelm IV. (1795–1861), King of Prussia, pocket watch no. 2846, bought in 1814
- Maria Christina of Naples and Sicily (1806–1878), regent of Spain, table clock no. 3347, bought in 1831
- Albert de Dion (1856–1946), French car pioneer, wristwatch No. 1782, bought in 1911
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, Chronograph No. 765, bought in 1928
- Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982), Polish pianist, pocket watch No. 4761, bought in 1930
reference
literature
- Breguet SA (Ed.): Breguet today. Paris 1986.
- Osvaldo Patrizzi, Madeleine Patrizzi, Jean-Claude Sabrier: Breguet. Masterpieces of classic watchmaking. Callwey, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-7667-1016-8 .
- Emmanuel Brequet: Breguet. Watchmakers Since 1775. The Life and Legacy of Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823). Alain de Gourcuff, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-909838-18-8 .
- Joe Thompson: Back to the Top, Chronos 2007, Volume 4, p. 31
Web links
- Breguet website
- The history of Breguet
- Breguet watch overview.Retrieved August 26, 2012
Individual evidence
- ↑ 360 ° GEO report - The secret of Swiss watches. Arte 1/2012 (among others)
- ^ Breguet: Silicon for Everyone.Retrieved August 26, 2012.
- ^ Antiquorum: The Art of Breguet. An Important Collection of 204 Watches, Clocks and Wristwatches . Geneva 1991.