AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS
BREGUET – NO. 2807
 sold to General Yermoloff on 26th August 1817 for 4'000 Francs.

 Extremely rare and exceptionally fine 18K gold and enamel astronomical, equation of time pocket watch with mean and true solar time, manual perpetual calendar and phases of the moon, presented in its Morocco fitted box, accompanied by Breguet Certificate dated 1857 and a copy of the original Breguet drawing.

 Literature
 The watch is illustrated in A. L. Breguet Horloger by C. Breguet, Enfield, England, no date, p. 14.

 Note
 This type of equation Breguet called “Premier équation” in his manufacturing registers. Its production cost was over eight times bigger than the cost of the entire movement (without the escapement)!

 Breguet began building just five of these watches but only three were completed by him: this one, the one in a Middle Eastern Collection and the watch No. 3947. The one presented here is not only the earliest but also the only one known which is still entirely in its original condition.

 Synopsis
2807 - The one presented here.
2862 - This movement was left until 1968 with Breguet, probably as a model, who cased it and sold it to Brown who then sold it a year later to Dr. Halpern.
3863 - This watch was brought back to Breguet who refurbished it and then the piece was sold to Lord Harris in 1952. Today, it is part of an important Middle Eastern collection
3946 - Unfinished, presumed scrapped.
3947 - Unknown whereabouts.

BREGUET – NO. 2807
 sold to General Yermoloff on 26th August 1817 for 4'000 Francs.

 The BREGUET NO. 2807 is built on the principles on Garde Temps – the highest standards. Abraham Louis Breguet wanted to make sure that all the forces interfering with the isochronisms of his chronometer are kept to the minimum.

 He employed the Premier équation, an invention made by himself in order to minimize the resistance on the going train. Its mechanism is ingenious, simple and minimally interfering with the going train. It engages the motion work (the wheels the hands sit on) only once per 2 hours for a brief moment, minimizing the resistance on the train. His invention transfers the motion from the mean time mechanism to the solar time via double spring-loaded wheel joined together by a system of two pivoted racks and a pinion. One rack advances the bottom wheel, the other retreats. This is done via a lever controlled by the equation cam mounted on the annual wheel. When the lever closes in, the small dart mounted on the advancing rack pushes the rack which advances the pinion on the intermediate motion wheel, which in turn transmits the difference to the solar motion work. When the lever retreats, the ingeniously simple mechanism takes over and every two hours releases the click holding both wheels together and it retreats until the dart falls on the equation lever. The equation mechanism is scintillatingly simple, driven from the days of the week wheel which turns once in five weeks. Its extension is fitted with 20-leaf pinion driving the center annular wheel which carries the equation cam.

 Another unique feature of the watch is its very simple perpetual calendar based on annual calendar and a small lever (protruding through the cuvette) which the owner needs to engage once every four years and the calendar adjusts during a leap year to the correct day.

 The watch is exceptionally well finished. Its entire going train is jeweled and the whole escapement is adorned with endstones. The escapement is superbly finished, the combination of steel and platinum balance, although known in Breguet watches, is reserved for his best pieces.

 The pallet fork with equidistant pallets, two platinum counterpoised weights and draw was well ahead of its time and became only in the 1860s commonplace.The sunken center of the beveled and mirror polished balance arm was made especially to assure that the watch is slim. Its slimness is remarkable for a watch with such complications.

 Equation of time
 Equation of time indicates the time difference between the true solar time and the mean solar time (or time shown by a sundial and a clock). This difference was of utmost importance in precision timekeeping since, at least until 1840 in England, and in most cases much later each municipality had its own local time which was measured after the sun.

 The difference between the solar and mean time (the time equation) has two major causes. The first is that the plane of the Earth's Equator is inclined to Earth's orbital plane. The second is that the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse – not a circle.

 Equation of Time due to Obliquity (the Earth's tilt)
 If the Earth's rotational axis were not tilted with respect to its orbit around the Sun, the apparent motion of the Sun along the Ecliptic would fall directly on the Equator, covering the same angles along the Equator in equal time. However, this is not the case, since the angular movement is not linear in terms of time because it changes as the Sun moves above and below the Equator. The projection of the Sun's motion onto the Equator will be at a maximum when its motion along the Ecliptic is parallel to the Equator (at the summer and winter solstices) and will be at a minimum at the equinoxes.

 Equation of Time due to Unequal Motion (the Earth's elliptical orbit)
 The orbit of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is at a minimum around December 31 and is greatest around July 1. The Sun's apparent longitude changes fastest when the Earth is closest to the Sun. The Sun will appear on the meridian at noon on these two dates and so the Equation of Time due to the Unequal Motion will then be zero.
BREGUET – NO. 2807
 sold to General Yermoloff on 26th August 1817 for 4'000 Francs.

 Alexéy Petrovitch Yermoloff [Yermolov] (1776 - April 11, 1861) was one of the most famous Russian military heroes.

 Alexander Pushkin devoted a poem praising his charismatic leadership. Tolstoy immortalized him in his “War and Peace” novel.

 Yermolov was born in a noble family from Orlov, studied at the Moscow University and enlisted in the army after graduation, where he advanced very quickly. In 1799, when being a captain, Yermolov was arrested for involvement in an alleged conspiracy plot against the Tsar Paul I. During the years in prison he taught himself Latin. After two years the Paul I was assassinated and the Tsar Alexander I who succeeded him, released Yermolov and reinstated his military position. It took Yermolov seven years to become general. After another four years he was promoted Chief of Staff of the Russian army and three weeks later was appointed commander of the artillery of the Russian armies. During the Napoleonic Wars he fought numerous battles and was awarded many orders. He was instrumental in conquering the Napoleonic forces.

 Yermolov was adored by his soldiers and hated by some of bureaucrats of the Ministry of War Affairs who liked to accuse him of “insubordination”.

 His enigmatic character earned him a nickname – “Modern Sphinx”. He left very interesting memoirs, published posthumously in two volumes.

 According to a report from his friends he had written notes with the dates from his life, not only of the past, but also of the future, including the day and the hour of his death. He died exactly on the date he had noted in his diary.

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