Breguet

“Breguet did not invent the perpetuelle but he certainly did perfect it.” - George Daniels, The Art of Breguet, 1975, p. 63.

The emergence of the self-winding watch in the 1770s provided a perfect opportunity for Breguet to exploit a new horological discovery to promote and further his fledgling business. Breguet’s genius as a watchmaker and skill as a businessman meant that he quickly understood the potential of this new invention and seized the opportunity to develop his own version of the self-winding watch which he called the perpetuelle. Before 1787 there are no records of the watches made by Breguet, however, it is clear that perpetuelles were among the earliest watches he produced. Breguet No. 2 ¹⁰/₈₂ is an especially early perpetuelle which is believed to have been owned by Marie Antoinette; its fractional number indicates a date of completion in October 1782. Breguet himself noted that the Duc D’Orléans was in possession of a perpetuelle in 1780, however, Daniels’ own research suggested that to be unlikely. The earliest example examined by Daniels for his book, The Art of Breguet, was no. 8 ¹⁰/₈₃ which is illustrated op. cit. p. 139, figs. 67a-c.

Early self-winding watches were criticised for their inability to stay efficiently wound in normal use and were often seen as requiring considerable and prolonged motion by the wearer in order to charge enough power to the watch’s mainspring. Breguet’s solution was in part achieved by incorporating two mainsprings, these were wound together by a heavy platinum weight pivoted at the edge of the movement. His banking springs, which were placed at each end of the pendulum-form weight’s arc of motion, had particularly flexible ends which helped to maximise the weight’s motion. George Daniels’ examination of Breguet’s perpetuelle system revealed that:

"about a mile of gentle walking will fully wind the watch and this is borne out in practice…The buffer springs…for the weight…have thin flexible ends to help the oscillations and with their aid a brisk walk of less than half a mile will also fully wind the mainsprings” George Daniels, The Art of Breguet, p. 344.

It was to the perpetuelles that Breguet first introduced his parachute shock protection device which placed the balance staff between two jewelled bearings which were set to the ends of fine springs. This system helped to prevent shock to the staff caused by the motion of the perpetuelle’s weight buffeting off its springs.  

As noted within the accompanying Breguet certificate, the original dial of this watch was enamel and this was later replaced by the current silver, engine-turned dial. Such replacements were not uncommon, especially where enamel dials had become cracked or damaged. According to the Breguet records, the present dial was replaced outside the Breguet workshops, after 1905. At the time of the watch’s sale at Sotheby’s in 1978, the watch was contained within a red morocco box supplied by the retailer Desoutter. It is very possible that it was Desoutter who arranged for the replacement of the dial and refurbishment of the watch case, probably between 1905 and 1920. It is also possible that the indications for day of the week and moon phase were added at the same time, as these are unrecorded on the Breguet certificate.