George III’s rare Breguet watch bought in secret during Napoleonic Wars tipped to fetch £1m at auction
Written by News on 18/06/2020
A rare gold pocket watch bought by George III during the Napoleonic Wars is expected to fetch up to £1m at auction.
The four-minute Tourbillon watch, made by the “genius” Abraham Louis Breguet, will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s next month, having been valued between £700,000 and £1m.
It was last sold at auction in 1999 for £551,000.
First purchased by the king for 4,800 French francs during the Napoleonic Wars, it was a time when it would have been hugely controversial for a British monarch to have bought the luxurious French timepiece.
The conflicts pitted the French Empire against a coalition of Napoleon I’s enemies, spearheaded by the UK.
It was therefore a discreet transaction, which George III never paid in full, and only the Tourbillon carriage inside the piece was signed by Breguet to keep it under wraps.
The watch itself is engraved with George III’s royal cypher and the initials “G&R”.
It is believed to be the only four-minute Tourbillon with an English dial and thermometer.
Other customers of the famous watchmaker included Napoleon himself, as well as Marie Antoinette, the King of Spain and Tsar Alexander I.
His Tourbillon mechanism was considered cutting-edge technology in the early 19th century, and increased a watch’s accuracy by working against gravity and adjusting positional errors.
Daryn Schnipper, worldwide chair of Sotheby’s watch division, described Breguet timepieces as once being “the theory of everything” – created by a man who “revolutionised watchmaking”.
She said: “When you hold the watch he made for George III, you instantly know you are in the presence of something truly exceptional.
“This watch not only captures Breguet’s genius – the ability to conceal layers of complexity behind apparent simplicity – it also encapsulates why historic timepieces are so relevant today.
“They transcend the function of mere timekeeping to tell us the history of the modern world.”
The watch is set to go under the hammer in London on 14 July.
(c) Sky News 2020: George III’s rare Breguet watch bought in secret during Napoleonic Wars tipped to fetch £1m at auction
