Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Breguet & Fils pocket watch, skeleton quarter-repeater, circa 1800-1810
- Maker / attribution
- Breguet & Fils (brand / maker)
- Date
- c. 1800-1810
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- France
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- 18k yellow gold
- Auction house
- Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
- Lot
- Lot 357-35
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: LOT 35, Geneva,December 8, 2022
- Catalogue title (original)
- Breguet & Fils Pocket watch, skeleton, quarter-repeater, three striking Jacks; “The Emperor, Fortune and Love”; 18K yellow gold and multicoloured gold (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva (lot Lot 357-35), this is a pocket watch by Breguet & Fils, made in France, dated c. 1800-1810. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: 18k yellow gold. The record is illustrated with 2 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Antiquorum catalogue description
18K yellow gold, open-face, key-winding, round-shaped, skeleton pocket watch, with one horological complication:· Quarter-repeater by three hammers on three steel gongs (activated by depressing the pendant)The chiselled varicoloured gold scene shows three Jacquemarts (Jacks), “The Emperor, Fortune and Love”, striking the elapsed time (the allegory of Fortune, on the left, strikes the hours and the third shot of the quarters while the Emperor, on the right, strikes the first shot of the quarters, and, the allegory of Love embodied by a Cupid, on the bottom, strikes the second shot of the quarters; all animated by the repeating mechanism.Movement 21’’’, full plate, gilded brass, fusee and chain, verge escapement, monometallic balance (gilded brass) and blued steel flat hairspring, pierced and engraved gilded continental “Louis XVI” cock, polished steel end-piece, silver regulator disc; main plate under the dial engraved in taille-douce (fine cut) with foliate decoration; repeater work on the main plate, under the dial.
Lot specifications (Antiquorum)
Model: apocryphal signature (not Abraham-Louis Breguet); probably made in the Neuchâtel mountains; Movement No.: 25 593; Case No.: 3 593 & 8 130 (by “R T”, probably Neuchâtel mountains); Material: 18K yellow gold and multicoloured gold; Caliber: 21’’’, fusee and chain, verge escapement; Dimensions: 55.9 mm.; Weight: 127.4 gr. (approx.); Signature: cuvette (dome)
Inscriptions & marks
cuvette (dome)
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
From 1750 to 1850 the watch became a precision instrument. Mudge's lever escapement, the cylinder escapement, Lépine's thin bar calibre, Breguet's innovations (overcoil, tourbillon, perpétuelle) and the pocket chronometer of Arnold and Earnshaw all date from this period, while verge watches remained common in cheaper production.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Repeating watches
Before electric light, telling the time in the dark was a real problem. Repeating watches strike the time on demand when a slide or push-piece is operated: quarter repeaters sound hours and quarters, minute repeaters hours, quarters and minutes. Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare disputed the invention in London in the 1680s. Early repeaters struck on a bell inside the case; Abraham-Louis Breguet introduced the gong (a coiled steel wire) around 1780, allowing thinner watches.
Repeaters require a separate train with racks, snails and a governor to control the striking speed, and are among the most demanding complications to make and adjust. Swiss makers of the Vallée de Joux specialised in repeating ébauches in the nineteenth century.
What to look for
- A slide on the case band or a push-piece through the pendant.
- Gongs encircling the movement (after c. 1780) or a bell in the case (earlier); pierced case for sound.
- The racks, snails and governor visible under the dial or on the movement.
- Terms such as 'Minutes', 'Quarts' or 'Répétition' on the dial or cuvette.
Dating clues
- Bell-striking quarter repeaters: c. 1690–1800.
- Gong repeaters and dumb repeaters (striking on the case): after c. 1780.
- Minute repeaters became more common after c. 1830 with Vallée de Joux ébauches.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Minute repeater
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