AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS
BREGUET - No. 2396
sold to General Yermoloff on 24th October 1815 for 4'000 Francs.

Highly important, exceptionally fine, and extremely rare - one of only three ever made - 18K gold Garde Temps four-minute tourbillon regulator with constant force escapement (now converted), independent seconds, 36-hour power reserve indicator, fast frequency balance, accompanied by a Certificate, copies of Tourbillon and Constant Force Escapement patents, and copies of original Breguet development papers of the model.

Literature:
The Art of Breguet, by George Daniels, London & New York, 1975, pp. 212-13
Le Tourbillon by Reinhard Meiss, Paris, 1990, pp. 100-101.
BREGUET - No. 2396
sold to General Yermoloff on 24th October 1815 for 4'000 Francs.

Breguet's two most important discoveries are the tourbillon regulator and the constant force escapement. The first was invented in 1795 and patented on June 26, 1801, and the latter obtained a patent in 1798. Breguet implemented them together in only three watches; the BREGUET No. 2396, No. 2436 and No. 2441. Furthermore, these three watches are the only Breguet watches with constant force escapement. All thirteen other constant force escapements Breguet made were implemented in clocks.
The difficulties in producing the constant force escapement in so small dimensions were so tremendous that Breguet found them worthy of only their best watches - the three fitted with tourbillon regulators.

These three watches are the absolute masterpieces of Breguet precision portable horology. One them is actually kept in the Hermitage Museum (BREGUET No. 2436), the whereabouts of another one are unknown, and as to the third one, it is well the one presented here.

Breguet registers have 54 tourbillon entries. Four of them were lost during the Breguet times, three were bought back, refurbished and renumbered, and another seven are clocks. It follows that during his life Abraham Louis Breguet made only forty tourbillon watches. The whereabouts of 28 of them are known, including the No. 2729, whose movement is owned by one collector and the case by another.
BREGUET - No. 2396
sold to General Yermoloff on 24th October 1815 for 4'000 Francs.

Tourbillon.
One of the difficulties faced by precision horologists was the inherent problem of positional error - regardless how well the balance is poised statically, when installed in a watch it shows positional errors due to the sagging of the balance spring, errors caused by the centrifugal force, uneven expansion of the balance and lack of uniformity of the balance lamina. Positional error even in a watch with very well poised balance will show at least two seconds difference per day in different positions.
Various watchmakers were aware of the problem, but it was Abraham Louis Breguet who solved it. In 1795 he conceived the ingenious idea of constructing a mechanism that would average out this error; a "tourbillon", patented in 1801, who does not eliminate the positional error, but it averages it out. A tourbillon watch will not run any better than a simple one, but the period of its carriage is constant regardless of the vertical position.

Consequently, although the rate of a tourbillon watch can vary within the period of its carriage, it can be regulated to be exact 360 times within a day (in the case of a four-minute tourbillon). So if a simple watch makes a three second positional error, one fitted with a tourbillon will make 0.008 seconds per day. The idea was to revolutionize precision timekeeping. No wonder that tourbillon watches often won trials made by Astronomical Observatories.

Abraham Louis Breguet was very proud of his invention. One day he obtained a watch by Arnold, cut out the entire escapement, installed a tourbillon instead and shipped it back to Arnold as a present, as if to say, "This is what a good watch should look like!"

Very few watchmakers were able to make tourbillions. In the early 19th century only Breguet, Favre-Bulle, Houriet and possibly Urban Jürgensen could do so.

Constant forces escapement.
Constant Force Escapement, contrary to what its name suggests, is not really an escapement but a complicated mechanism installed in a timepiece between the train and the escapement, which delivers always a constant impulse to the escapement.

The variation of the strength of the impulse to the escapement due to the variations of the motive power of a mainspring had been a nightmare for horologists from the moment of the very invention of a portable timepiece. Different devices have been invented, most notably fusee and stackfreed but they only diminished the problem and were far from solving it. It was Breguet's horological genius that resolved a problem known for over 300 years by inventing the Constant Force Escapement Impulse.
BREGUET - No. 2396
sold to General Yermoloff on 24th October 1815 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 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 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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