French gold médaillon montre à tact cylinder watch Circa 1801

Attractive gold, enamel diamond and pearl set watch by Breguet
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A French gold and royal blue translucent enamel diamond and pearl set hunting cased pocket watch so called Montre à Tact , circa 1801. This rare watch features a gilt movement with key winding, a subscription calibre with a gold finish, a ruby cylinder with a central barrel, and a simple three arm balance made of brass. It includes a flat hairspring in blued steel and an adjustment index for advance and delay in blued steel, with the signature on the plate Breguet No. 665/3176. The gold hunter case is adorned with translucent blue enamel on both the front and back, showcasing diamond set initials SC on the front. On the back, there is a diamond set arrow hand that aids in reading the hours by means of the pearls on the case middle, along with a push button for secret opening on the case band.
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Within the case, the hours and minutes are indicated on an off centre dial, with a setting for advance/delay, time setting, and hand adjustment via a key. It features a small off centre silvered and guilloche dial with Roman numerals, an external minute track, and Breguet hands. Accompanied by a key.
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Diameter: 40 mm
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Weight: 51.4 g
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Signed: Breguet
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Sold on 6 Ventôse year 9 (25 February 1801) to Mr Ouvrard for Madame Tallien for 4,000 Francs. The watch was taken over by Breguet in 1817 as a “tact watch surrounded by brilliants.” It returned to the workshops for refurbishment and received a new number, N° 3176. This No. 3176: Gold watch with brilliants, formerly No. 665. was sold on 24 December 1817 to Mr Sahut for 2545 francs.
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Revised in 1825 and 1830 for Mrs Sahut. No one knows exactly when this watch, which originally wore large diamonds, was converted to pearls, but the fact remains that this piece is one of the few “tact subscription watches” that are still known today. It will thus have lived several lives in different eras, as was the case for some of Breguet’s watches.
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The provenance of this watch, whose first owner was Madame Tallien, illustrates the prestige of Breguet’s clientele, which included all the great personalities of the time, some of them among the richest, such as Mr Ouvrad, who gave her this watch for the substantial sum of 4,000 francs.
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The Tact Watch by Breguet
The Tact Watch was invented by Abraham Louis Breguet in the late 1790s at a time when it was unseemly to tell the time in public. The “tact” system enabled one to tell the time discreetly in society without taking the watch out of one’s pocket and perhaps offending one’s host or neighbour during the popular private salons of the era. As seen in this engraving of an evening at the home of the Princess of Salm in 1806, it features some very prestigious guests, including Abraham-Louis Breguet, regarded as one of the most significant personalities of his time, well beyond the circle of watchmakers. Breguet’s tact watches are categorised into different sizes, from small to medium and finally large. Of all the tact watches crafted by Breguet, the small category to which our watch belongs is undoubtedly the most sought after. The most famous of all small tact watches, with royal blue translucent enamel, is the one made by Breguet for Josephine de Beauharnais, under number 611, described as Petite montre médaillon à tact and acquired on 18 February 1800 by Madame Bonaparte, who later became Empress Josephine.