A highly important and almost certainly unique slim 20ct gold, enamel and pearl-set montre à tact with previously unknown Breguet escapement with coaxially mounted escape wheels, documented in the Archives as échappement libre à double roue

Duc de Praslin.

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Louis Desoutter.

Sir David Salomons purchased from the above in 1917 (noted separately by Salomons in an unpublished paper relating to the history of his collection).

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Current private collection (branch of the Breguet family) believed purchased in the 1960s.

Centenaire de A.-L. Breguet 1747-1823, Musée Galliera, 1923, exhibit 133.

Sir David Salmons, Breguet 1747-1823, London, 1921, p. 45 & illustrated p. 171.  

A sensational new discovery, this watch has been hiding a secret for more than two and a quarter centuries. Made for the Duc de Praslin, one of Breguet’s most important patrons and friends, the watch incorporates a previously unknown Breguet escapement.

Although the watch has remained in a private collection for many decades, it has been publicly known since at least 1921, when Sir David Salomons included it in his book Breguet, 1747–1823. Salomons, however, miscatalogued the piece as having a ruby cylinder escapement (the most common type found in montres à tact) and therefore cannot have examined the movement in detail: the escapement is only fully visible once the movement is removed from the case, being almost entirely concealed beneath the tact panel at the back of the watch. When the watch was exhibited at the Breguet centennial exhibition held at the Musée Galliera in Paris in 1923, it was again miscatalogued as having a ruby cylinder escapement — a clear indication that the movement had once more not been opened and inspected. After all, no one would have expected to discover such an unusual escapement in an otherwise conventional-looking tact watch.

Salomons did note that the watch was accompanied by Breguet Certificate no. 2577. The Breguet Archives preserve a copy of the details from this certificate, issued for Breguet No. 1052 in 1918, and the description of the escapement is explicit: échappement libre à double roue – detached escapement with double escape wheel.

The Breguet Archives record the original price of no. 1052 as Fr. 1,800 - a considerable sum for a watch of this type - with an additional note detailing the very high Fr. 250 cost of the escapement. For comparison, the Breguet Archives indicate that the average cost of a ruby cylinder escapement ranged between just Fr. 60 and 120, while a special escapement for a garde-temps was between Fr. 150 and 300. The Fr. 250 cost of the échappement à double roue therefore reflects the additional time and expense required for its construction.

In its action and with its two escape wheels mounted concentrically on the same arbor, one of the most remarkable aspects of the échappement libre à double roue is its similarity to the George Daniels co-axial escapement, although there are also notable differences. Both are double-impulse escapements. In each case, impulse is given in both directions, once to the balance roller and once to the lever. Impulse to the balance is radial in both escapements though given via the smaller escape wheel in Breguet’s escapement and via the larger wheel in Daniels’. In Breguet’s escapement, the lever delivers sliding impulse via the larger escape wheel while in Daniels’ co-axial escapement, the lever delivers radial impulse via the smaller wheel. Locking in both escapements is via the larger escape wheel. George Daniels spent much of his life studying the work of Breguet and was enormously influenced by him. Given how closely attuned he was to Breguet’s vision and genius, it is unsurprising that he should have conceived an escapement so reminiscent of this newly discovered escapement devised by Breguet almost two centuries earlier.

The movement of no. 1052 is notably slim, a characteristic which, alongside its technical sophistication, would have delighted Breguet’s design sensibilities, enabling him to incorporate it into the elegant, slender tact case. It seems no coincidence that Breguet should have chosen to fit such an experimental escapement to a watch destined for one of his most loyal supporters. Indeed, could the cursive ‘B’ on the cover, unusually, be a reference to Breguet himself — a reflection, perhaps, of the pride he took in the new escapement he had developed?

It was produced during a highly experimental period in Breguet’s career. Having already developed his own version of the lever escapement for his perpétuelle watches, this watch was sold shortly after the master’s development of the tourbillon (patented in 1801) and in the same year that Breguet is believed to have begun developing his échappement naturel (1802).¹ Perhaps his belief in his ability to perfect the échappement naturel was the reason that he abandoned the échappement libre à double roue. Nevertheless, it seems no coincidence that Breguet should have chosen to fit such an experimental escapement to a watch destined for one of his most loyal supporters, the Duc de Praslin.

Antoine-César de Choiseul-Praslin, Duc de Praslin (1756-1808)

Antoine-César de Choiseul-Praslin, Duc de Praslin (1756-1808), was among Abraham-Louis Breguet’s greatest patrons and closest friends. Passionately engaged with horology, he not only supported Breguet as a client but also played a decisive role in sustaining the firm at critical moments.

In 1787 Breguet entered into partnership with the financier Xavier Gide to strengthen capital and expand production. The relationship was troubled and dissolved in September 1791. Among the settlement terms was a payment of 50,000 livres in cash from Breguet to Gide. To meet this obligation he turned to his friend Antoine-César de Choiseul, later Duc de Praslin, who advanced the funds on highly favourable terms. Again, in 1795, as Breguet prepared to return from exile in Switzerland and revive his Parisian workshop, it was to Praslin that he turned. Not only did the Duke agree to reschedule the debts of 1791, he also injected substantial new capital. As Emmanuel Breguet has noted, in so doing Praslin “became more than a shareholder in the firm, and was virtually a partner.”²

Over the years, Praslin purchased eleven Breguet watches, including the present example. Among them was an early minute repeating perpétuelle with chronometer escapement, calendar and thermometer (no. 20 – 148 sold in 1791) and the celebrated no. 92 (sold 1805), considered the second most technically sophisticated watch Breguet created after the “Marie-Antoinette” (no. 160). No. 92 is a remarkable double-dialled watch combining a lever escapement, independent centre seconds, a minute repeater, perpetual calendar (with subsidiary month dial and retrograde indications for date and day of the week), equation of time, thermometer, state-of-wind indicator and moon phases. It was later owned by Sir David Salomons, who described it as “a remarkable piece of work, and not inferior to the one intended for Marie-Antoinette (no. 160).”³ Salomons ultimately presented the watch to the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, where it remains today.

As a measure of their great friendship, when the Duc de Praslin died, he remembered Breguet in his will: “I beg my friend Monsieur Breguet to allow me to offer him a diamond ring with an openwork setting… being the most perfectly suited of my possessions to evoke my attachment to him.”⁴ His widow, the Duchess of Praslin, likewise remembered Breguet in her own will: “I leave to my dear Breguet a portrait of his friend [the Duc], that it may give him pleasure coming from one who holds him in her tender affections.”⁵ Following their deaths, Breguet continued his friendship with the family through the couple’s son, Félix.

Born in Paris in 1756, Antoine-César de Choiseul, Duc de Praslin, pursued both a military and political career. He was second in command of the Queen’s Regiment in 1779 and promoted to Field Marshal in 1791. During the Reign of Terror he and his wife Charlotte de Thomond were arrested but were released in July 1794 through the intervention of Joseph François Baudelaire, tutor to their children and father of the poet Charles Baudelaire. Under Napoleon, Praslin became a senator and was appointed to the Légion d’Honneur, advancing to Commander of the order in 1804. He died in 1808 and, by imperial command, was buried in the Panthéon.⁶

¹ See research carried out by Keith Orford, detailed in: Orford, K, A Watch with Breguet’s Échappement Naturel, Antiquarian Horology, vol. 32, No. 1, March 2010, p.62.

² Breguet, Emmanuel, Breguet Watchmakers since 1775, Revised and Expanded Edition, Swan Éditeur, 2016, page 110.

³ Salmons, Sir David Lionel, Breguet 1747-1823, London: published by the author, 1921, p. 48.

⁴ Ibid p. 174-75

⁵ Ibid, p. 174

⁶ Ibid, p. 174