Exceptional horologic works of art

Hotel Noga Hilton, Geneva, Oct 11, 2003

LOT 124

Breguet, No. 2826, sold to Colonel Harvey on August 28, 1816 for 2500 francs. An important small 20K gold hunting-cased watch with date and à tact hand built along the principles of the Garde Temps, in original morocco leather fitted box. Accompanied by original gold chain, original male gold key, and a Breguet certificate.

CHF 60,000 - 80,000

EUR 39,000 - 52,000

Sold: CHF 86,000

C. Four-body, "forme quatre baguettes", by master casemaker Tavernier, No. 3426, engine-turned, spring-loaded front cover, gold à tact hand on the back, hinged bezel, band with 12 gold touch knobs, back cover with bayonet fixing with shuttered winding aperture. D. Silver, engine-turned by Tavernier, eccentric champlevé radial Roman hour chapter with numerals on polished cartouches, outer minute dot divisions on polished ring, engine-turned and matted background, date aperture at 12 o'clock with gold disc and gold arrow pointer, regulating aperture set symmetrically at 2 o'clock. Gold Breguet hands. M. 29.3 mm (13'''), gilt brass bar calibre, hanging barrel with “arbre percé” (square opening for winding), jeweled to the 3rd wheel, straight line calibrated lever escapement with divided lift with 10-tooth brass escape wheel with oil-retention holes, 3-arm cut bimetallic compensation balance with gold screws and with flat balance spring, pare-chute on both pivots. Signed on the dial, punche“B 2826” inside the back cover, along with French guarantee marks. Diam. 36 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good

Movement: 3*-

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense

Dial: 3 - 01-

Notes

An important watch exemplifying Breguet's genius both from the esthetic as well as the technical point of view. The elegant dial design is still used for wristwatches 180 years later. The balance jewels, which are of sapphire, are made of a single piece.They are pierced only half-way through, so as to form both the pierced jewel and the cap jewel at once. Furthermore, they are friction-fit! Today, this is common practice in almost all wristwatches, but at the time, when jeweling was far from a common practice, this was unheard-of. The balance is made of two laminae of steel and a special silver/copper alloy which was apparently invented by Breguet and employed in his best watches, including the perpetuelles. Each of its 3 arms is terminated with a block for poising “in the raw”, the Breguet counterpart of the English “winged balance”. The safety feature on the balance which assures that it will not become stuck behind the wrong side of the fork during a jerky movement is very unconventionally achieved by a roller that looks like his famous ruby cylinder and is mounted in the same way. The pallet fork is equally impressive, well calibrated not to be confused with counterpoised for equalizing the momentum of the entry and exit pallets which are made of sapphires and excellently polished.The provenance is as impressive as the watch itself. Colonel Harvey served as a liaison between Breguet and some of the most eminent Britons of the day. The Duke of Wellington bought a Breguet watch through Harvey. Subsequently, the watch became part of the most famous Breguet collection ever assembled, that is the Salomons Collection. When part of that collection was sold, the watch was bought by Mr. Kalish, an important American collector. During the sale of his estate, it was bought by another American collector.