The House of Breguet served 19th century maritime exploration and navigation through its chronometers used to calculate ship positions. The precision and reliability earned founder Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) the title of Watchmaker to the French Royal Navy in 1815.
In the next century, the company took to the sky with Breguet instruments used for airborne navigation and its chronograph strapped to pilot's wrist.
This high-flying chapter in its long history was portrayed in an exhibition held in Paris, where the company was founded in Île de la Cité in 1755.
The exhibition was nostalgically staged at the National Air and Space Museum of France located on the site of the Paris–Le Bourget Airport. The aviation museum boasts a remarkable collection of more than 400 aircraft, including those designed by Louis Charles Breguet (1880-1955).
He was born 10 years after the family's watchmaking operation was sold to the head of the workshop Edward Brown.
His grandfather, third-generation Louis-Clément Breguet (1804-1883) was a renowned physicist who focused on manufacturing scientific and industrial instruments.
Likewise, Louis Charles Breguet pursued his passion in becoming an aviation pioneer, who firstly designed gyroplanes (the forerunners of the modern helicopter) and established his own business in 1911.
The exhibition traces the evolution of Breguet Type XX chronographs.
The Société Anonyme des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet became notable for building outstanding military and civil aircraft, which were equipped with technical instruments by none other than the House of Breguet, then in the hands of the Brown family.
The Breguet and Brown families maintained close ties, even more so when Louis Charles Breguet outlined aeronautical requirements to the watchmaking house.
Its archives reveal that from the 1930s, a large number of "special products" were created and adapted to the aeronautical environment.
The technical items, such as split-second chronograph counters, on-board chronometers and siderometers, were supplied to the French Air Force and Air France.
Delivery of the flight instruments for aircraft panels increased from the early 1950s, and for three decades Breguet Horloger was one of the recognised specialists. Customers included Aérospatiale, whose legendary supersonic Concorde was equipped with a Breguet chronograph.
The supersonic Concorde is equipped with a Breguet instrument-panel chronograph.
Backing up the chronograph on the instrument panel, the Type XX was developed for pilots in the early 1950s. The exhibition traces the evolution of the wrist chronograph over seven decades.
The first-generation Type XX timepieces were produced from 1953 untill 1970.
Housed in a brushed steel case, the models included the military Type 20 and Type XX delivered respectively to the French Air Force and Aéronautique Navale as well as the Type XX made for the Centre d'Essais en Vol test flight centre.
The Breguet Aviation company actually purchased three of the first six Type XXs, and one was gifted to celebrated test pilot Jacqueline Auriol. The reputation of the Type XX spread beyond the military sphere, leading to a demand for civilian versions.
The second generation emerged in 1971 with a new look featuring an enlarged polished steel case, thick lugs and black bezel. Almost 800 were available, and most of them were bought by civilians, while 50 military models were delivered to the Royal Moroccan Air Force.
The Breguet workshops moved to premises in Switzerland's Vallée de Joux in 1976. Ten years later, the last pieces sold seemed to mark the end of the Type XX.
A revival, however, brought a third generation with numerous interpretations from 1995 until 2022.
A Breguet chronograph (bottom right) on the instrument panel of the Bréguet Br 1050 Alizé military plane.
Designed with a fluted caseband and equipped with a self-winding movement, Reference 3800 without a date display was dubbed the Aéronavale to underline its historic pedigree.
Other significant models include the Reference 3820 with a date indicator, named Transatlantique to recall the first Paris to New York flight on the Breguet 19 T.F Super bidon Point d'Interrogation piloted by Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte in September 1930.
Having joined the Swatch Group in 1999, the Manufacture Breguet began a new era with Type XX Reveil (Reference 3860) featuring an alarm function, followed by the launch of the Type XX for ladies.
The enlarged Type XXI (Reference 3810) with a diameter of 42mm and a different layout debuted in 2004, while high-frequency and silicon technologies were incorporated into the Type XXII (Reference 3880) released in 2010.
A titanium Type XXI (Reference 3815) closed the third episode of Breguet's iconic chronograph, only to continue the saga with the next-generation models.
Test pilot Jacqueline Auriol was the first woman to own a Breguet Type 20 chronograph.
Gold Type XX No.1780 chronograph made in 1955.
Steel Type 20 No.7211 for the French Air Force from the 1950s.
