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Lot Essay
The Breguet records state;
2746 Régulateur astronomic, bôite bronze doré, fond acajou, sold on December 31, 1931 to Louis-Charles Breguet for the sum of 26,500 Francs.
Louis-Charles Breguet, 1880-1955, was the great, great grandson of Abraham Louis Breguet. Like his great, great grandfather Louis-Charles also made his mark in history - in the world of aviation. He was one of the most important French airplane designers of the 20th century and together with his brother, Jaques began work on a gyroplane with flexible wings (the forerunner to the helicopter). His prototype was built in 1909 and it set a speed record in 1911 for a 10-kilometer flight. In the same year he founded the Société des ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet.
He was especially noted for his his development of a reconnaissance plane used by the French Air Force in World War I. One of the pioneers in the construction of metal aircraft, the Breguet-14 day-bomber, perhaps the most famous French warplane of all time, was made almost entirely of aluminium. As well as the French, sixteen squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force also used it.
After the First war he returned to the gyroplane which he developed with with Rene Dorand and made the world's first vertical flight machine which climbed to 518 feet at 75mph. The Second World War prevented further research and post 1945 other aircraft designers had already moved the helicopter's development into the next stage. He died in Paris on May 4th, 1955.
A very similar clock is illustrated in Tardy, The French Clock, part 111, p. 117,
2746 Régulateur astronomic, bôite bronze doré, fond acajou, sold on December 31, 1931 to Louis-Charles Breguet for the sum of 26,500 Francs.
Louis-Charles Breguet, 1880-1955, was the great, great grandson of Abraham Louis Breguet. Like his great, great grandfather Louis-Charles also made his mark in history - in the world of aviation. He was one of the most important French airplane designers of the 20th century and together with his brother, Jaques began work on a gyroplane with flexible wings (the forerunner to the helicopter). His prototype was built in 1909 and it set a speed record in 1911 for a 10-kilometer flight. In the same year he founded the Société des ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet.
He was especially noted for his his development of a reconnaissance plane used by the French Air Force in World War I. One of the pioneers in the construction of metal aircraft, the Breguet-14 day-bomber, perhaps the most famous French warplane of all time, was made almost entirely of aluminium. As well as the French, sixteen squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force also used it.
After the First war he returned to the gyroplane which he developed with with Rene Dorand and made the world's first vertical flight machine which climbed to 518 feet at 75mph. The Second World War prevented further research and post 1945 other aircraft designers had already moved the helicopter's development into the next stage. He died in Paris on May 4th, 1955.
A very similar clock is illustrated in Tardy, The French Clock, part 111, p. 117,