The new Breguet Marine Tourbillon Equation Marchante 5887 in platinum, with its white gold, black finish, hand-guilloché “wave” motif dial, is perhaps the luxury watch brand’s timepiece most befitting the founder’s membership of the Bureau des Longitudes and chronometer maker to the French Navy.
The aesthetics may be modern, but the movement engraving is a throwback to a time when such watches were navigational instruments, and in that regard, it is pure Breguet. It is arguably the brand’s anointed flagship model as it embarks on a new direction under its recently appointed CEO, Gregory Kissling.
The dial display for the Marine Tourbillon Equation Marchante shows the hours and minutes, the retrograde date (anchor-tipped hand), and the equation of time (gold disk-tipped hand).
The watch is not only elegant but contains an immense amount of mechanical complexity alongside artisanal finishing and bold decorative techniques. Powered by the brand’s complicated tourbillon-regulated calibre 581DPE, it displays hours, minutes, and seconds, the equation of time, and a perpetual calendar. What makes the watch so engaging as a modern timepiece is the running equation of time complication, as it is rarely included because of the difficulty in execution, and also its esoteric embodiment of all that Abraham Louis Breguet himself promoted throughout his life, namely, accuracy in chronometry.
An ingenious use of shapes. The mean solar time represented by the circular tourbillon outline against true solar time is outlined in figure “8”. Months of the year can be read against the small triangle at the top of the dial indicating how mean and true solar time differs over the course of the year.
The Breguet Marine Tourbillon Equation Marchante displays the difference between the mean solar time (the 24-hour day) and the true solar time (the time dictated by the earth’s rotation relative to the sun) using the centrally mounted minute hand topped with a faceted gold disk (which provides a flash of difference amidst an otherwise monochromatic design). The equation of time cam (the figure “8” shape) sits on top of the tourbillon axis and shows how mean and true solar time varies throughout the months of the year.
The intricate engraved back of the Marine Tourbillon Equation Marchante.
The in-house calibre can be viewed through the sapphire case-back and is wound by an engraved platinum peripheral rotor with a wave motif. This movement combines tradition and modernity. The bridges have a hand-engraved silhouette of the Royal Louis, a Royal Navy warship commissioned in 1752, and a rose compass on the main barrel. The wound main spring has an 80-hour power reserve, and the tourbillon features a titanium cage with a Breguet balance spring and escapement wheel made in silicon.
The Breguet Marine Equation Marchante 5887 in its original platinum and blue dialled livery debuted in 2017 and it was the first real attempt to modernise the aesthetics of the brand. This model, with the updated dial colour, gives the whole Marine line a new contemporary direction, with edgier aesthetics, a black textured rubber strap, and the luxurious lustre and heft of the platinum case which is water resistant to 100 metres.
Author: Andrew Hildreth
If you liked this article and would like to learn more about Breguet, you may want to read A Tale of Two Breguets and Breguet: The English Connection.
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