Breguet

Breguet was founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet, a Swiss watchmaker born in Neuchâtel who established his workshop at 51 Quai de l'Horloge on the Île de la Cité in Paris. After studying under Ferdinand Berthoud and Jean-Antoine Lépine, Breguet quickly gained the patronage of French royalty, including Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. The famous Marie-Antoinette pocket watch (No. 160), commissioned in 1783, took 44 years to complete and remains one of the most important timepieces ever made. Abraham-Louis Breguet invented or perfected numerous horological innovations that remain fundamental to watchmaking today: the tourbillon (patented 1801), the self-winding/automatic watch mechanism (1780), the first wristwatch (1810, for Caroline Bonaparte), the Breguet overcoil balance spring (1795), and the Pare-chute shock protection system (1790). After Abraham-Louis died in 1823, the business passed through his descendants until the Brown family of England took ownership from 1870 to 1970. During the quartz crisis of the 1970s, ownership changed hands several times. In 1976, then-owner Chaumet moved production from France to the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland. Investcorp acquired Breguet in 1987 and created Groupe Horloger Breguet in 1991. The Swatch Group purchased the company in 1999, and today Breguet continues to produce haute horlogerie timepieces at its manufacture in L'Abbaye, Switzerland, maintaining its legacy as one of the most important and innovative names in watchmaking history.