gilded movement, jewelled lever escapement, two-arm compensation balance, blued steel balance spring with overcoil, parachute suspension, index regulator with pivoted extension arm for dial aperture, gold discs for day and date of the month, blued moon disc with gilded moon and silver stars

silver dial, guilloché damier patterned centre, the edge engine-turned à grains d’orge, twin satin finished chapter rings with black Roman numerals and pearled minutes, crémaillère borders, secret signature repeated between XI and I, apertures for days, moon phases and date, angled cartouche signed Breguet at IX-X, matching regulator aperture to edge by II-III,

gold case with silver band, engine-turned à grains d’orge, skeletonised tact hand mounted to revolving case back, shuttered aperture for winding, touch pins to the band, adjusters to band for hands, date & day

Measurements

diameter 44mm

depth 8mm (excluding tact hand)

weight 65.3g

Accompaniments

with a gold Breguet chain and ratchet key and a Breguet 250th anniversary certificate

The Rev. William Bentinck Lethem Hawkins (1801-1894).

Christie, Manson & Woods, The Valuable Collection of Objects of Art of the Rev. W. Bentinck L. Hawkins, deceased, late of Bryanston Square…A Choice Collection of Breguet Watches, London, 6-20 February 1895, lot 463.

Sir David Lionel Salomons, collection no. 14.

Christie’s London, The Celebrated Collection of Watches by Breguet, Part I, formed by The Late Sir David Salomons, Bart., 1 December 1964, lot 4 sold for 1800 guineas ($5,292) and purchased by Mrs Oaks.

Current Private Collection purchased from the above and cleaned and serviced by George Daniels October 1965.

Breguet at Chaumet, London, Geneva, Paris, New York, Autumn 1986.

Salmons, David, Breguet 1747-1826, London: 1921, p. 34.

Daniels, George, The Art of Breguet, London & New York: Sotheby Parke, Bernet, 1975, p. 282, figs. 352a-d.

Breguet, Emmanuel, Breguet Watchmakers since 1775, Revised and Expanded Edition, Swan Éditeur, 2016, p. 303, fig. 357.

A watch of extraordinary elegance and refinement, for many this piece will encapsulate the quintessential Breguet aesthetic, perfected by Abraham-Louis in the years after his return to Paris from exile in Switzerland. That style was carried forward by his son, Antoine-Louis (1776–1858), in the years following his father’s death, when the present watch was made, and its enduring appeal continues to resonate today. The influence of this particular dial layout on the firm’s later production is clear, and in c.1988 Breguet introduced the Ref. 3330, a model that deliberately echoed this design.

With a depth of just 8mm, the watch integrates a calendar, moon phases, and the ingenious tact complication, which allows the time to be read by touch—whether in darkness or discreetly, without drawing the attention of others. Correctors are cleverly built into the sides of the case for adjusting the calendar indications, while the hands are set by means of a square concealed within the band’s touch pin at IV o’clock. The case back revolves for the tact hand and includes an offset aperture for winding which reveals the winding square when the back panel is turned. Thus, apart from regulation - adjusted through the arc-shaped aperture beside II and III o’clock - the case never needs to be opened, with the double advantage of protecting the movement from interference and safeguarding the dial from damage when setting the hands or adjusting the calendar.

Monsieur de Roos

The Breguet Archives note that this watch was sold to Monsieur de Roos. This may be Henry-William de Ro[o]s (1792-1839) who succeeded as 22nd Baron De Ros following his mother’s death on 9 January 1831. The watch was purchased in the same year as the death of Henry-William’s father, Lord Henry.1 The de Ros Barony itself dates back to the thirteenth century. A noted whist player, Henry-William became embroiled in a gambling scandal in 1836, accused of cheating at Graham’s Club by “sauter la coupe” and marking cards with his thumbnail; he sued for libel but lost the case.2

The Rev. William Bentinck Lethem Hawkins (1801-1894).

This watch was once owned by the pioneering Breguet collector Rev. Hawkins. Educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and later ordained into the priesthood, Rev. Bentinck Hawkins devoted much of his long life to study, travel and collecting. Between 1851 and 1890, he acquired at least 124 timepieces attributed to Breguet, including seven tourbillons, six perpétuelles, five minute repeating watches, two resonance watches and a sympathique clock.3  His was the earliest and most extensive assemblage of Breguet’s work in Britain and a landmark in the history of horological collecting.

Hawkins was an active and informed collector who acquired pieces from dealers in Paris and London, through advertisements in The Times, and at early horological auctions - well before Breguet’s broader revival among connoisseurs. Research has shown that his collecting spanned nearly four decades, in contrast to the shorter timeframe of Sir David Salomons’s acquisitions (1915–1925), and that at least thirty-four watches in the Salomons collection are confirmed to have once belonged to Hawkins. The dispersal of his holdings by Christie’s in 1895, across several sales in February and July, realised £19,146 - a considerable sum at the time.4

1 Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 104th Edition, 1967, London, p. 734.

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_FitzGerald-de_Ros,_21st_Baron_de_Ros&oldid=1121294674

3 Bernard Roobaert Hon FBHI, Les Collectionneurs de Breguet (I): William Bentinck Lethem Hawkins (1801–1894), pp. 1, 4, 7–8.

4 Ibid., pp. 5–6.