Like love, the beating of an infatuated heart and the sentimental gymnastics that embrace it, alternating between the euphoria of an unforgettable memory and the deep sighs of emotional serenity, time too possesses a philosophical elasticity. Isn’t it said that time tends to speed up during joyous moments and lengthen during boredom? If sixty seconds on the dial of a watch make up a minute, sixty minutes make up an hour, time breathes in rhythm, like the organ that palpitates in our chest, and yet the experience of these durations sometimes presents a different reality. Breguet translates this purely lyrical impression with an original hand applied to its ideal timepiece for transcribing this symbol of love: the Reine de Naples.
The elegant collection, based on the creation between 1810 and 1812 of the first wristwatch born of the relationship between a young monarch, Caroline Murat (1872-1839) and the mechanical genius of her favorite watchmaker, Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), is expanded with the addition of two models that personify this temporal flexibility. One, the Reine de Naples 9835, is a limited edition of just 20 pieces, all in blue mother-of-pearl with diamonds, while the other, the Reine de Naples 9838, features an immaculate white-lacquered face hemmed with blue sapphires. Common to this duo is the egg-shaped gold case, measuring 36.5mm in length, 28.4mm in width and 11mm in thickness, and housing the 78A0 caliber. This movement, wound by a platinum oscillating weight with a 40-hour power reserve, features a heart-shaped hand under the hour aperture, composed of a pair of nickel-phosphorus alloy arms, one flexible and the other rigid. This binomial ends in an arrowhead, silver or red, to indicate the minutes, and its rhythmic stroke transforms its geometry, stretched towards 9 o’clock then fleshy from 3 o’clock onwards, mimicking the pulsations of love.
