Simple “timekeeping” watch featuring two styles, Breguet No 45
Simple watch, new calibre, Breguet No 702
Notebooks , A.-L. Breguet horological treatise project.
A.-L. Breguet
How watchmaking conquered the world
Following on from the Louvre in 2009, the Swiss National Museum is devoting a
retrospective to the art and life of Abraham-Louis Breguet. Through his inventions, this
peerless technician made a masterful contribution to the advancement of horology.
A native of Switzerland, born in Neuchâtel in 1747 and established in Paris, he extended
his commercial network to encompass the whole of Europe. His prestigious clients
included Queen Marie-Antoinette, Tsar Alexander I, King George IV of England, and the
Bonaparte family.
This prestigious exhibition brings together rare watches, clocks and measuring
instruments, along with portraits, historical documents, patents and manuscripts
covering the production period of A.-L. Breguet and his successors, from the last quarter
of the 18th century through to the 1850s. The some 175 and one-of-a-kind creations on
display come from the greatest European collections.
Presented in summer 2011 at the Château de Prangins – the French-speaking branch of
the Swiss National Museum, located in an idyllic setting near Geneva on the shores of
Lake Léman – this exceptional retrospective will then move on to the Swiss National Museum in Zurich in the autumn of this year.
This exhibition is placed under the patronage of Federal Councillor Didier Burkhalter.
