Lot 184

Abraham Louis Breguet

Montre de Carrosse

An important quarter repeating coach watch with ruby cylinder escapement sold to Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, on July 13, 1808. In his lifetime Breguet made and sold only ten coach watches. This is the only remaining one made by Breguet to his style and to his conception.

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Out of Breguet's ten coach watches, at least six were in the traditional 18th-century style with the verge escapement. One (No. 534) had an escapement of unknown kind, and three had Breguet's signature ruby cylinder escapement making them true Breguet-style timepieces and the only modern, at the time, coach watches. Today, all but one are lost. This piece is the only remaining known coach watch, with ruby cylinder escapement.
There are two Breguet coach watches known in the old style that appeared on the market within the last decade: No. 248, sold by Sotheby's London on April 1, 2009 for GBP 37,250 and No. 1155 auctioned by us on May 6th 2017, lot 150, for EUR 42,200.
The watch has, as is typical for all coach watches, a quarter-hour repeating system activated by a cord hanging underneath 6 o’lock.
It also has a feature almost unheard of in coach watches, a bracket, which is also at 6 o'clock, for fastening the watch to the coach from both the top as well as from the bottom.
This coach watch was unlike any other at the time: not only it was indifferent to jerky movements because of its anti-shock device perfected by Breguet only a year before, it did not need to be corrected every day - it had Breguet's accurate ruby cylinder escapement. The escape wheel is not only jeweled but also capped. Breguet normally did not cap escape wheels in his ruby cylinders. Cap jewels are flat and placed over the ones in which arbors turn. They support arbors' pivots when a watch is in horizontal positions. In addition, they are set in this watch in an 8-shaped plate, close to the thinnest part to make sure that if the oil runs, it will stop at the sharp part of the center and not run away completely. Breguet initiated the use of this system that was adapted by high-end watch companies, such as Patek Philippe for example, for high-grade watches.
The Breguet archives record that this coach watch was sold to Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, on 13 July 1808. Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860) was the youngest brother of Napoléon Bonaparte and King of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. His official royal name there was Jérôme Napoleon (JN) or Hieronymus Napoleon (HN).