BREGUET - Lot 339

BREGUET N°2357 CIRCA 1813 Silver pocket watch with bridges and toc quarter repeater. Dial: white enamel (hair), painted 'Breguet' numerals, external minute track, blued steel 'Breguet' hands, secret signature below the 12 o'clock position: 'N°2357, Breguet', signature 'Breguet & Fils' at 6 o'clock. Dial secured by a single screw. Movement: with bridges, gilded brass, cylinder escapement, three-armed balance with fall-prevention suspension, blued-steel spiral, toc quarter repeater on pendant with steel hammer. Diameter: 49mm Gross weight: 90.75g According to the Breguet Archives, the watch was sent on June 8, 1813 to the Queen of Naples for the price of 2000 Frs. However, only the dial and movement match, as the watch originally had a gold case. This watch would therefore have been re-cased (outside the Maison Breguet) in this silver case. We would like to thank Mr. Emmanuel Breguet for his kind collaboration. Bibliography: A similar watch, in its original version, delivered to the Queen of Naples on January 24, 1814 and bearing N°2327, is on sale at Habsburg-Antiquorum: The Art of Breguet, Geneva, April 14, 1991, lot 50 (see illustration). The Queen of Naples, Caroline Bonaparte (1782-1839), the younger sister of Emperor Napoleon I, married King Joachim Murat, who reigned from 1808 to 1815. She was one of A.L. Breguet's most important customers from 1807 (she bought 34 clocks and watches between 1808 and 1814). She also bought several dozen more commercial watches at modest prices, which she gave as gifts, and from which the watch shown here may have come. It was on one of her commissions, and thanks to his close relationship with Breguet, that in 1810 he produced the first watch designed to be worn on the wrist (Breguet watch N°2639): a totally revolutionary invention for the time. Thus, the Queen of Naples gave her name to this famous feminine and refined line, so emblematic of the House and still produced today, whose original oblong shape has been preserved.