The History of Time: The Genius of Abraham-Louis Breguet

Abraham-Louis Breguet established most of the fundamentals of modern watchmaking – not just in terms of technical and aesthetic principles, but also in how to design and sell watches. 

They are few in number; their names are Lépine, Breguet, Wilsdorf, Patek, Audemars, and Vacheron. Brands, you say? No; in this instance the list is of individuals: people whose influence continues to be felt every day, centuries after their passing, nowhere more so than in the firms named after them.

Some are more important than others, not just from a subjective point of view, but because they’ve influenced every aspect of the modern watch. They’ve laid down milestones, defined standards, and established conventions; Breguet is one of them.

The inescapable tourbillon

When your thoughts turn to Breguet, thoughts of the tourbillon can’t be far behind. On 26 June 1801, (or 7 Messidor an IX, as it was in the French Republican calendar in use at the time), Abraham-Louis Breguet was granted a patent for a “watch compensating for all the inequalities that may be found in the balance wheel and mainspring”. The invention was known as the tourbillon, the queen of Fine Watchmaking complications. The original document attesting to this is still perfectly preserved at the French National Industrial Property Institute (INPI) in Paris; today, the tourbillon is a central component of Fine Watchmaking.

By patenting the tourbillon, Breguet hoped to secure a future income for himself, but history had other plans. Although the invention was outstandingly brilliant, its implementation proved to be especially difficult. Breguet devoted the better part of the year 1800 to making prototypes, and ended up producing very few watches with tourbillons during the 10-year period covered by the patent. In all, Breguet, his son, and his employees made fewer than 50 timepieces in 25 years.

Mind the drop

There’s more to Breguet than just tourbillons, though; there’s also his pare-chute system. Having noted that balance wheel pivots are the most vulnerable of components in the event of impacts on account of their being so delicate, Breguet had the idea of making them cone-shaped, holding them in place with a small cap fixed on a spring leaf, a system that’s still in use today (albeit updated, improved, and now known as the Incabloc).

A hairspring that ends well

Then too, there’s Breguet’s terminal curve spring. In 1795 Abraham-Louis Breguet had the idea of raising the outermost coil and giving it a special shape, turning it inwards with a precisely calculated curve so that the spring behaves concentrically, with a better, more accurate, more balanced, more regular beat, giving the watch more precision –  the “Breguet hairspring” is also still in use today.

The Breguet style

Today’s watch aesthetics still owe a great deal to Breguet, too. ‘Hollow tip’ hands are also known as ‘Breguet hands’. It’s hard to be sure that they were invented by the master himself, and indeed it’s pretty unlikely, but their widespread use and enduring popularity definitely belong to him.

The art of guilloché engraving is yet another feature that owes its extensive use largely to Breguet. It wasn’t invented by him, but he ensured it became a fixture in watchmaking in two ways: as a decorative art, and also as the most attractive and effective means of visually dividing dials into sections, thus making them easier to read.

As if all that wasn’t enough, history has also found room for the term ‘Breguet numerals’ and their highly distinctive calligraphy. The slim, clearly legible Arabic numerals designed by A.-L. Breguet are still used today on enamel dials – and just as with the eponymous hands, his name is still often used to describe them.

Then again, there’s the little-known story of Breguet’s considerable contribution to aviation, as attested to by the firm’s Types XX, XXI and XXII. Rather than making watches, Louis Charles Breguet (1880-1955) built aircraft, and indeed was a pioneer in the field: laying the foundations for air travel as early as 1906, inventing the gyroplane (the ancestor of the helicopter) in 1907, even devising the concept of the air show in 1909. Louis Charles Breguet won his first flight airspeed records two years later, and developed biplanes such as the Breguet 14, whose contribution in the 1914-1918 war earned it a name that left no doubt as to its qualities: the’ victory plane’. Some of his later aircraft flew at an altitude of 6000 metres, beyond the range of anti-aircraft fire. Breguet’s range of pilot’s watches are direct descendants of this lineage.

An expert in development

Lastly, it would be a shame to see Breguet’s contribution solely in terms of the watch itself; his commercial developments are noteworthy, too. Breguet popularized the subscription principle, by virtue of which watchmakers received a non-negligible share of the final price of the watch before it was made, thus securing the sale and (equally importantly) offsetting their purchase of the raw materials needed.

Breguet also made a major contribution to the development of watchmaking knowledge. During his lifetime, Abraham-Louis Breguet was appointed master horologist in 1784 and watchmaker to the French Navy in 1815, as well as being a member of the French Academy of Sciences and a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

To top it all, Breguet may be seen as one of the fathers of ‘super-complications’. King Louis XIV’s wife Marie-Antoinette was to have received a Breguet timepiece, commissioned in 1783, that would include every known complication of the day. Unfortunately, it was not completed until 34 years later, by Breguet’s descendants; by then, time had sadly run out for the queen.