An Ottoman Breguet N° 1090 Grande Complication

The Breguet Museum has acquired an extremely prestigious watch, made in 1808 for a dignitary of the Ottoman Empire, for the sum of USD 697,000 / EUR 532,500, a record bid for a Turkish-style Breguet watch. [1] 

Mavi Boncuk |

This historical piece was ordered in 1807 by His Excellency El Said Ali Efendi [2], former Turkish ambassador to Paris of “The Sublime Portal”, and with an introduction from Talleyrand he became a personal friend (or a most favored buyer) of Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823). He contributed to the latter’s early awareness of the Turkish market’s significance, especially since Turkey was the only major power still allied with Napoleonic France… Breguet became the indispensable watchmaker to the scientific, military, financial and diplomatic elites of the age. His timepieces ruled the courts of Europe [3]. One may recall at this juncture that Napoleon’s gift to mark the instatement of Sultan Mahmud II in 1813 was a Breguet sympathique clock covered in precious stones – the most expensive object ever made by A.-L. Breguet, and which is still kept in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

The Breguet N° 1090 Grande Complication watch is a quarter-repeating model with independent grande and petite sonnerie featuring a case and double-case enamelled in the classic Turkish style, along with a dial graced with ancient Arabic numerals – all in an exceptionally good state of conservation. It will thus now be joining the other Breguet Museum treasures and will be exhibited in a few weeks’ time in Paris in the Breguet Museum[4] located above the iconic boutique on the Place Vendôme.

[1] READ NYTimes Article

[2]Morali El-Sayyid Ali Efendi, the Ottoman ambassador|sefir-i kebir in Paris (1797-1802)

See: Deux Ottomans à Paris sous le Directoire et l'Empire. 
Relations d'ambassades 
Published May 1, 1998 by Actes Sud in French. 
Paperback  288 pages 
ISBN 10 2742717455 | ISBN 13 9782742717453

[3] Such as Queen Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, Talleyrand, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Caroline Murat, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, Queen Victoria.

[4]  The buyer, at 650,000 Swiss francs, or about $700,000, was the Breguet Museum in Place Vendôme in Paris.

Emmanuel Breguet, curator of the museum, recently acknowledged by e-mail that a “high price” was paid to “re-acquire” the watch, more than it had paid for other Turkish pieces it bought at auction from 2000 to 2008, “because the antique Breguet pieces, especially the antique Breguet Turkish pieces, have become more and more exciting for the collectors.”

Noting that the watch was in perfect condition, Mr. Breguet said it was also especially valuable because it had been commissioned by Esseyd Ali Effendi, a former Ottoman ambassador to Paris. Mr. Esseyd had become a friend of the French diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who had introduced him to the master watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet.

“Until now, we have less than 10 Turkish watches in our collection and the N°1090 will be a good complement,” Mr. Breguet said. The watch will go on exhibit in March at the Breguet Museum. Mr. Esseyd had quickly become a big Breguet client, first buying a “minute grande sonnerie” clock watch — a watch that strikes the hours and quarters automatically and repeats the hours and quarters when operated by a push piece — in 1799 and then a long-case regulator in 1801. After returning to the Ottoman court in 1802, he ordered 10 more repeating watches from Breguet, along with several less expensive watches and pocket thermometers, Mr. Breguet said.

“He was the first, along with his friend Stephanaki, an important watch dealer in Istanbul,” to demonstrate to Breguet the potential of the Islamic market for special watches, Mr. Breguet noted in his book “Breguet, Watchmaker since 1775.” He also wrote that watches made for the Ottoman market “had to be gold and enamel, pair-cased, and fitted with white enamel Turkish dials.”