SJX Watches
Hands On: Breguet Four-Minute Tourbillon No. 1890
In the coming weekend, one of the most important watches of this auction season will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s Breguet’s 250th anniversary thematic sale November 9 – Breguet no. 1890, a pocket watch with tourbillon and natural escapement made by the firm by Breguet while Abraham-Louis Breguet himself still helmed the company. The gilt dial with a regulator-style layout might seem familiar – the recent Classique 7225 reproduces this dial design. In fact, Breguet no. 1890 isn’t the only watch in this style; it belongs to a series of pocket watches all equipped with a four-minute tourbillon and échappement naturel from the early 19th century that were among the finest watches of the time. Breguet built just eight four-minute tourbillons with natural escapement, all of which thankfully survive, and only three with gold dials. King George III ordered the most famous example – almost identical to this watch – during the Napoleonic wars. For context, that would be like Churchhill (who owned a Breguet himself) ordering an A. Lange & Söhne watch during the Second World War. As such, it was signed Recordon, Breguet’s London agent, to disguise its French origins. Whirling About Regulator Almost 225 years ago, the French Ministry of the Interior granted A.-L. Breguet a patent for his most famous creation, the tourbillon – a clever exercise in lateral thinking. For a mechanical watch to keep the same time across all vertical positions the combined balance, st...
