Well, i’m not really a watch junkie though i do have a go at horological articles every now and then.
I remember reading, several years back, a few articles on the Swiss mastercraftsman Breguet. Had a thing for the brand’s classic, unassuming designs, and technological advances. And no, Rolex is in no way a classic nor is it a pretty brand (at least in my opinion).
Anyways, this watch was commissioned by Marie Antoinette, that queen of France. Unfortunately, it never got to her before her head was lopped off. I was, and am, still particularly facinated by the watch’s thermometer. Yes, it’s a simple complication (a ‘complication’ in the horological world means a mechanism secondary to the primary hour and minute hands, that could serve any function) – if i remember it was a dainty implementation of the bimetallic strip. But considering she wanted every single function that was known at that time, it was and still is, once heck of a watch.
Breguet recently commissioned a reproduction of this watch a while back (can’t remember) in the belief that the watch would never be recovered again. The Breguet watchsmiths had to use information from what little plans they had, together with making guesses at missing bits of information.
So happily i report my chance discovery of this Wall Street Journal video, on the recovery of the Marie Antoinette watch!
327 Posts in Total
