Breguet (brand)
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Breguet (brand)

46°38′57″N 6°19′02″E / 46.64912°N 6.31735°E / 46.64912; 6.31735

Breguet (French pronunciation: [bʁeɡɛ]) is a Swiss luxury watch, clock and jewelry manufacturer founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Headquartered in L'Abbaye, Switzerland, Breguet is one of the oldest surviving watchmaking brands and a pioneer of numerous watchmaking technologies such as the tourbillon, which was developed into a practical solution by Abraham Breguet in 1801. Abraham Breguet also invented and produced the world's first self-winding watch (the Perpétuelle) in 1780, as well as the world's first wristwatch in 1810 (the Breguet No.2639, for Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples).

Breguet is a highly regarded watch manufacturer. Over the years, notable Breguet patrons and timepiece owners include Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, King George III, Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander I, Ettore Bugatti, Sir Winston Churchill, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Gioachino Rossini, Arthur Rubinstein and so on. The Breguet & Fils, Paris No. 2667 (1814) pocket watch is among the most expensive watches sold at auction, fetching US$4.69 million (CHF 4,339,000) in Geneva in May 2012. The Breguet Sympathique Clock No.128 & 5009 (Duc d'Orléans Breguet Sympathique), is currently the most expensive Breguet timepiece ever sold at auction, fetching US$6.8 million in New York in December 2012.

Since 1999, it has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group.

Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet, a Swiss watchmaker born to Huguenot parents in Neuchâtel. He studied watchmaking for ten years under Ferdinand Berthoud and Jean-Antoine Lépine before setting up his own watchmaking business at 51 Quai de l'Horloge on the Île de la Cité in Paris. The dowry that came with his marriage to the daughter of a prosperous French bourgeois provided the backing which allowed him to open his own workshop.

Breguet's connections made during his apprenticeship as a watchmaker and as a student of mathematics helped him to establish his business. Following his introduction to the court, Queen Marie Antoinette grew fascinated by Breguet's unique self-winding watch; Louis XVI bought several of his watches. In 1783 the Swedish count Axel Von Fersen, who was the queen's friend and reputed lover, commissioned a watch from Breguet that was to contain every watch complication known at that time as a gift to Marie Antoinette. The result is a Breguet's masterpiece, the Marie-Antoinette pocket watch (Breguet No.160).

The business was a success, and around 1807 Abraham-Louis Breguet took on his son Louis-Antoine as his partner, renaming the firm "Breguet et Fils" (Breguet and Sons). Louis-Antoine took over the firm upon the death of his father in 1823. After Louis-Antoine retired in 1833 (he died in 1858) the business was passed to Abraham-Louis' grandson Louis Clément Francois (1804–1883).

Abraham-Louis' great-grandson Louis Antoine (1851–1882) was the last of the Breguet family to run the business. Although he had two sons and a daughter, they did not enter the business, so the Breguet company hired noted English watchmaker Edward Brown of Clerkenwell to manage the Paris factory. Brown eventually became a partner and, after Breguet's grandson's death, the owner and head of the company. When Brown died in 1895 the firm was taken over by his sons, Edward and Henry. On Edward's retirement in the early 1900s, Henry Brown became the head of the firm.

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