Description
Classique wristwatch in 18-carat gold. Self-winding movement with date indication. Silicon balance-spring, lever and escape wheel. Sapphire-crystal caseback. Water-resistant to 3 bar (30 meters).
38mm diameter.
Available in rose gold and in yellow gold with a silvered gold dial, hand-engraved on a rose engine, or with a “grand feu” white enamel dial.
Available in white gold with a silvered gold dial, hand-engraved on a rose engine, or with a “grand feu” white enamel dial or “grand feu” blue enamel dial.
The hands at this time, often short, broad and heavily decorated, added to the generally rather ponderous effect and difficulty of reading the dial. From his earliest days as a watchmaker, Breguet set out to streamline not only the internal mechanisms but also the external forms of his watches. As the hands are an essential part of the watch, both functionally and aesthetically, it is not surprising that this is another area in which Abraham-Louis Breguet left his indelible mark. To begin with he used gold English hands, until in about 1783 he invented a type of hand that was uncompromisingly new, made of gold or blued steel, and described variously as resembling a hollow apple or a crescent moon, the principle being that the points were hollowed out in eccentric fashion. Of extreme delicacy and irresistible elegance, the new shape was an immediate success. The term ‘Breguet hands’, like ‘Breguet overcoil’, soon entered the vocabulary of watchmaking.
