Property from a branch of the Breguet family
An extra slim, very fine and rare 18ct gold open-faced half-quarter-repeating demi-chronometer lever watch with date and jumping hour hand
Breguet No. 3447 | Sold to Monsieur Schickler on 29 October 1822 for Fr. 5,000, re-purchased and sold to the Duc de Villahermosa on 30 July 1825
Auction Closed
November 9, 08:49 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 80,000 CHF
Lot Details
Description
20’’’ gilded movement, lever escapement, bi-metallic compensation balance with three blued steel arms and pink gold and large platinum screws, blued steel balance spring with overcoil, parachute suspension, polished steel regulating index with extension arm for dial aperture, repeating train with partially visible blued steel spring, polished steel hammer striking smaller intermediate hammer to repeat the hours and half-quarters on a single coiled gong
silver dial, centre with engine-turned damier pattern, outer edge guilloché clou de Paris, twin satin finished chapter rings with black Roman numerals and pearled minutes, gold Breguet hands, the minute hand with open square to base for adjustment, angled cartouche signed Breguet at VIII, matching cartouche at IIII with aperture for regulation, curved aperture beneath VI for date with corresponding indicator
18ct gold Tavernier case engine-turned à grains d’orge, repeating slide to band between X and XI, bayonet back with off-set aperture turning to reveal female winding square, case back interior numbered B 3447, Paris assay bull to left in irregular hexagonal cartouche (third standard gold 750/1000, 1819-1838) maker’s mark MAB beneath a triangle in lozenge-shaped cartouche for Tavernier workshop, pendant with Paris assay head of Sardanapalus (1819-1838)
Measurements
diameter 49mm
depth 8.5mm
weight 81.9g
Accompaniments
with a Breguet 250th anniversary certificate
1822 M. Schickler.
1825 Duc de Villahermosa.
---
1959 George Brown at Breguet.
Current Private Collection purchased from the above on 24 October 1959.
Breguet, Emmanuel, Breguet Watchmakers since 1775, Revised and Expanded Edition, Swan Éditeur, 2016, pp. 286-287, fig. 335.
Such is the exceptional fineness and slimness of this watch that the certificate originally supplied with it offered reassurance to the purchaser that “despite its extreme slimness, it is as reliable as the thickest garde-temps.”1 An almost identical watch to the present example appears in Breguet’s first illustrated catalogue, issued around 1822. A copy of the original drawing is reproduced here (Salomons reproduces the brochure in full in his 1921 book); although a few small differences may be observed, these are likely attributable to artistic licence, and the watch depicted may in fact be this very piece, no. 3447. The accompanying Breguet cataloguing text, reproduced below in French, emphasises the quality of the work and places particular stress on its remarkable thinness. It remarks that, in reality, the watch appears even slimmer than suggested by the drawing.
‘Les répétitions très plates, demi-chronomètres, échappement libre, balancier compensateur, secondes et quantième, n° 4, a et b. Elles paraissent beaucoup plus plates que dans le dessin. Une coulisse sur le collier remplace le poussoir de répétition. Quantième avec aiguille fixe. Avance et retard sur le cadran, dont la lunette s'ouvre; mais la boîte ne s'ouvre point pour remonter : le fond tourne, sur lui-même pour découvrir le carré de remontoir, comme pour le refermer. L'aiguille des heures saute d'heure en heure cadran d'argent excentrique et boîte d'or guillochés.’
[Very flat repeating watches, half-chronometers, with detached escapement, compensating balance, seconds and calendar, no. 4, a and b. They appear much thinner in reality than in the drawing. A slide on the band replaces the usual repeater pusher. Calendar with fixed hand. Fast/slow regulator shown on the dial, whose bezel opens; but the case itself does not open for winding: instead, the back rotates on itself to reveal the winding square, and turns back again to close. The hour hand jumps forward precisely hour by hour. Silver eccentric dial and gold engine-turned case.]
Extract from the Breguet Catalogue circa 1822.
José Antonio Azlor de Aragón y Pignatelli, Duc de Villahermosa (1785-1852)
The Breguet Archives record that this watch was purchased by the Duc de Villahermosa on 30 July 1825, having previously been bought back by the firm from the original owner, M. Schickler. At that date the Duke was serving as Spain’s ambassador in Paris, where he was then residing, and it is therefore highly fitting that he should have sought out a watch from Breguet.
José Antonio Azlor de Aragón y Pignatelli, Duke of Villahermosa, was a Spanish nobleman, historian, and politician. Born in Madrid, he supported the city’s uprising against Napoleon in 1808 and took part in the defence of Zaragoza, later refusing allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte - a stance that led to his imprisonment in France until the French withdrawal. He was invested as a Knight of Montesa and awarded the Order of Charles III in 1824, before serving in the Estamento de Próceres, the upper chamber of Spain’s early liberal parliaments, and subsequently as a diplomat.
In Madrid, his family seat was the Palacio de Villahermosa, remodelled in neoclassical style in 1805 by Antonio López Aguado. In the late 20th century this palace was transformed into the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, now one of Spain’s foremost art institutions. Before his death in 1852, the Duke also held the titles of Count-Duke de Luna and Count de Guara.2
1 Breguet, Emmanuel, Breguet Watchmakers since 1775, Revised and Expanded Edition, Swan Éditeur, 2016, p. 287.
2 Hopkings, J & Hargreaves, M., The Papers of Henry Clay, Vol. 5, University of Kentucky, 1973, p. 1081.