Abraham-Louis Breguet - Timeline of Breguet's Works

Timeline of Breguet's Works

• 1775–1780 Improved the automatic winding mechanism - his perpetual watch.
• 1783 Invented the gong for repeater watches (bells were used until then). Designed the apple-shaped 'Breguet' hands and 'Breguet numerals'. The hands still grace watch dials today.
• 1787 Adopted and improved the lever escapement. Abraham-Louis Breguet used it in its definitive form from 1814 (this form is still in use).
• 1793 Developed a small watch showing the equation of time.
• 1790 Invented the 'pare-chute' anti-shock device.
• 1794 Invented a retrograde display mechanism.
• 1795 Invented the Breguet spiral (flat spiral balance spring with overcoil).
• 1795 Invented the "Sympathique" ('sympathetic') clock, a master carriage clock which rewinds and sets to time a detachable pocket watch.
• 1799 Invented the 'tact' watch that could be read by feel in the pocket or the dark.
• 1801 Patented the tourbillon escapement, developed circa 1795.
• 1802 Invented the echappement naturel, a double-escape wheeled chronometer escapement that needed no oil.
• 1821 Developed the "inking" chronograph, in partnership with Frédérick Louis Fatton.

Generally speaking, Abraham-Louis Breguet was distinguished by the highest attention paid to aesthetic watch design.

In 2009 the Louvre in Paris presented a major exhibition of Breguet's work, arranged chronologically, with 146 exhibits in eight sections that covered every phase of his career. Highlights included some of Breguet's most complicated watches:

• No. 45, which displays both the Gregorian and the Republican "decimal" calendars (Breguet made only three Republican calendar timepieces)
• No. 1160, the replica of the famous No. 160 "Marie-Antoinette",
• Perpétuelle self-winding watches
• multiple original tourbillons, including an unusual large-scale demonstration tourbillon later purchased by King George IV of the United Kingdom
• examples of the "pare-chute" shock-protection system, constant force escapements
• a superbSympathique watch and clock set from the personal collection of Queen Elizabeth II.