Lot 61

Abraham-Louis Breguet

Garde Temps

An important expedition pocket chronometer of museum quality, with regulator dial and Arnold's spring detent escapement, manufactured in best movement quality "Garde Temps" and sold in 1805 to the famous scientist Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) for the sum of 960 Francs with Breguet certificate no. 4779

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Humboldt's Chronometer
Observations, readings and experiments - even on himself for Alexander von Humboldt those were the basis of his science. Systematic recording of everything he came across on his legendary travels, came to be the bedrock of his research, and gained him a reputation as "most important naturalist of his time". Only secure facts let him recognize interrelations, which let him to conclude early on: "Everything is interdependent".
Precision measurement required good instruments, which was a fact Humboldt would not compromise on. It was his passion to always search the most remarkable and precise instruments available at the time. Inclinometers, declination compasses, eudiometers, hyetometers, electrometers, cyanometers, hygrometers, barometers and thermometers, were all on board, when the frigate Pizarro set sail for America from La Coruña in June 1799. Of corse there were also telescopes, sextants, quadrants, a pocket chronometer by Johann Heinrich Seyffert from Dresden and a chronometer denominated as marine chronometer made by Louis Berthoud in Paris (No. 27), which was recorded as by far the most expensive instrument and whichhas unfortunately been lost.
Humboldt was an extremely skilled navigator and on many occasions he commented in his diaries on his chronometers which he considered essential for calculating positions: "The seamen relied more on the log than on a chronometer and smile at the statement that land will be in sight quite soon; they believed to have a few more days' journey ahead: Thus it pleased me very much to hear at 6 in the morning of the 13th that the lookout spotted very high land …".
Exact timekeeping had been the great challenge during the past decades, the determination of the longitude for navigation at sea a high-priority issue for important national institutions - the London Board of Longitude and the Paris Bureau des Longitudes are well know to this day to anyone with an interest in the development of watch- and clockmaking during this period of time.
For Humboldt, however, the determination of the geographical position on land was of course equally important during his expeditions. So the chronometers he used were made by the best in the field in addition to the aforementioned Berthoud, Seyffert, Earnshaw and Breguet he also owned a pocket chronometer by Kessels of Altona (which belonged to Denmark at the time), which he had been given by Danish King Frederik VI (which today resides at the Deutsches Technikmuseum "German museum of technology" in Berlin).
On this Humboldt wrote in a letter "… I know how excellent Kessel's pocket chronometers are. My only comment is that for my aging eyes the seconds division is a little large. In my opinion the seconds hand of Breguet's pocket chronometers are unbearably small and the chronometer by Louis Berthoud, which I used on the American expedition with enamel instead of metal dial and large seconds hand was very comfortable to operate for me."
In the early years, when his eyes were still very good, he was, however, impressed with the quality of Breguet's movements. The company records lists quite a number of watches sold to Monsieur de Humboldt:
- No. 144 in 1806, which had a different original owner and was bought by Humboldt in 1818 for 1,000 Fr.
- No. 147 in 1805 for 960 Fr.
- No. 1337 in 1804 for 1,000 Fr.
- No. 1600 in 1804
- No. 3719 in 1823 for 2,400 Fr.
- No. 147 will be discussed later.
Obviously Alexander von Humboldt knew how important his tools were for him, as they were not only expensive but also irreplacable once an expedition was on its way. It was the same with his watches the first page of his Russian diary only held the words: Chro[no]meter Earnshaw
So we may be able to guess how he felt about this detail of a painting that would be famous lateron:
Look at the expensive timepieces at his feet with other bits and pieces on the floor in South America! "Don't you just love", he wrote elsewhere, "how the case has been locked by the artist himself so that it can only be opened by three screws. One will never be tempted to open the case and such a tight lock is a great protection from dust". It is unthinkable that Humboldt's chronometer would just be resting on the ground! And this is not the only thing that would have upset Humboldt, there is also the toy microscope on the right side of the table and the altogether messy scene with the citing Tobias Kraft of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences - "slouching" figure of the explorer.
The artist Eduard Ender attempted to sell his painting to the Prussian King Frederick William IV. Asked for his opinion, Humboldt, who probably disliked the whole scene, put it in plain words: Don't touch it.
Unfortunately this would not stop the name Humboldt being inevitably linked to the picture "Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland in the jungle hut".
Back to the Breguet No. 147.
Humboldt purchased this Garde Temps in a silver case in 1805, after his American journey, at Breguet's in Paris for 960 Francs and held on to it for decades, bringing it back to Breguet for a revision in 1827.The no. 147 is obviously mentioned in George Daniel's classic book "The Art of Breguet" on page 160. Daniels states that Breguet began working on this watch as early as 1791 but only completed it circa 1805: "In the 1780s the clear design and function of this watch are not really attractive to Breguet's clientele, who generally prefer something a little more "entertaining", that better represents their lifestyle. Breguet discontinued the production of these watches before creating the der perpetuelles range in 1787 and only completed them in 1794, when the resurgence of scientific activities after the Revolution had created more demand for them. They represent Breguet's first steps in the field or pure precision watchmaking, which was at the time dominated by the English school. His radical approach in the design oft he watches, led to the introduction of the ¾ plate where the balance is placed underneath the plate which was at least 30 years before the English makers began using this construction. Its distinctive and elegant design is also typical for Breguet's work and has nothing in common with English pocket chronometers of the time." The numbering of these early precision chronometers is sometimes not clearly documented in the records and it is possible that Breguet created these movements while working for Berthoud in Paris.
After this watch was sold in Switzerland in 1991 for over 280,000 Sfr., it will most likely change owners again now after more than 30 years.
The 181 g pocket chronometer with Arnold's spring detent escapement comes in a silver case made by Tavernier (No. 470) and has an enamel dial by Borel (No. 15); it is in excellent condition and is proof of how great appreciation the scientist Alexander von Humboldt had for his precision tools 200 years ago.
Sources:
Gerhard Kortum: Humboldt der Seefahrer und sein Marinechronometer.
George Daniels: The Art of Breguet
edition humboldt digital: www.edition-humboldt.de
Daniel Kehlmann: Die Vermessung der Welt
Wikipedia

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas, exploring and describing them for the first time from a modern Western scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in several volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular).
Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity, which introduced concepts of ecology leading to ideas of environmentalism. In 1800, and again in 1831, he described scientifically, on the basis of observations generated during his travels, local impacts of development causing human-induced climate change.
Humboldt is seen as "the father of ecology" and "the father of environmentalism".
Source: wikipedia