Abraham-Louis Breguet (French pronunciation: [abʁa.am lwi bʁeɡɛ]; 10 January 1747 – 17 September 1823), born in Neuchâtel, then a Prussian principality, was a horologist who made many innovations in the course of a career in watchmaking industry, including the tourbillon.

Tattet had a showroom in Paris; the family tried for some time to entice the young Breguet into the trade, to no avail, but he eventually took to it with great interest and in 1762, aged 15, he was sent to be apprenticed to an unknown Versailles master-watchmaker.

[2] Unfortunately, Marie met a tragic end, either through murder or suicide, and soon after Breguet lost both his mother and his step-father, leaving him to support himself and his younger sister.

1812 the firm's address was 79, quai de l'Horloge du Palais, although Salomons speculated that this might have been merely a change of number and name, not of the actual location.

[4] Breguet invented or developed innovative escapements, including the tourbillon, automatic winding mechanisms,[5] and the overcoil (an improvement of the balance spring with a raised outer coil).

Within ten years Breguet had commissions from the aristocratic families of France and even the French queen, Marie Antoinette.

Breguet did not staff his workshops in the traditional way, with unskilled apprentices, but instead sought out the finest available watchmakers in Paris, whom he employed to make watches to his own designs.

He entered the French Academy of Sciences in 1816 as a full member, and received the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour from the hands of Louis XVIII in 1819.

Following his introduction to the court, Queen Marie-Antoinette developed a fascination for Breguet's unique self-winding watch and Louis XVI of France bought several pieces.

[14] Breguet's most remarkable piece anticipated the wristwatch by a century; he designed this, together with his friend John Arnold, for Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples, in 1810.

Each watch from his workshops demonstrated the latest horological improvements in an original movement, mostly fitted with lever or ruby-cylinder escapements that he perfected.

It is thought that Breguet originally made the clock for the French Commission of Longitude, but sold it to Brisbane for use in his observatory at Largs in Scotland.

It cost Brisbane the considerable sum of 2,500 francs, and the fact he chose to buy French rather British, even in the nationalistic political climate of the early nineteenth century, gives some idea of how well regarded Breguet was internationally.

[16] British philanthropist, scientist and MP Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons (1851–1925) developed a lifelong passion for horology and he became one of the leading authorities on Breguet and his timepieces.

[17] After Salomons' death in 1925, his daughter Vera donated 57 of his best Breguet pieces, including the "Marie Antoinette" and a "Sympathiques" clock to the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, which was founded by her brother.

Three years later, on the night of 15 April 1983, the Mayer Institute was burgled and 106 rare timepieces, including the entire Salomons collection, were stolen.

There was a substantial insurance payout, but the case remained unsolved until August 2006, when the perpetrator was revealed as Namaan Diller, a notorious Israeli burglar who had fled to the US after the break-in.

Just before he died in 2004, Diller had confessed his crime to his wife, Nili Shamrat, and in August 2006 she attempted to sell a batch of the stolen items (including the "Marie Antoinette" watch and a Breguet "Sympathique" clock) back to the museum, although her initial asking price of $2 million was eventually cut down to just US$35,000.

[18][19][20] In 2011 a member of the public brought in a pocket watch to be assessed by the experts of the BBC TV series Antiques Roadshow at Blair Castle in Perthshire, Scotland.

Roadshow expert Richard Price stated that the timepiece was an early Breguet montre à tact ("tactile watch"), dating from 1801.

The watch was enclosed on both sides by discs covered with a blue translucent enamel over a Guilloché base machined in a chevron pattern.

He declared the newly discovered Breguet to be the greatest watch he had ever seen in his 28 years with the programme, and assessed its value as at least UK£50,000, although it may be worth considerably more – another example sold for US$288,000, while a montre à tact of very similar design, commissioned by Napoleon's wife Joséphine de Beauharnais for her sister Hortense, was sold by Christie's in Geneva for US$1.3 million in 2007.

This was done by turning the front disc clockwise until it went no further (because of the cam inside) and then feeling at which hour marker (indicated by the surrounding circle of jewels) the watch hand was positioned.