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Late King of Morocco Hassan II is a fashion icon, known for his elegance and style. And watches were not an exception. To read the time, he chose renowned luxury brands. Breguet and Chaumet, two renowned luxury brands from France, both with rich histories in watchmaking and jewelry, collaborated in the 1980s to craft the King of Morocco a watch like no other, one with a Hijri instantaneous triple calendar.
Breguet is a Swiss luxury watch, clock, and jewelry manufacturer founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775, while Chaumet, a jewelry and watchmaking designer, was founded in 1780 by Marie-Étienne Nitot. At the time of the manufacturing of this royal piece, Chaumet owned Breguet. In 1958, the sons of Marcel Chaumet, Jacques and Pierre, were appointed executive directors of the House, and they took over the Breguet brand in 1970.
Known for crafting masterpieces for royalty, Breguet, supported by the French Crown in the late 1700s, and Chaumet delivered the 8K white gold automatic bracelet watch with Hijri instantaneous triple calendar to King Hassan II on December 23, 1985.
«At first glance, the watch would appear to be a triple calendar timepiece with the simple upgrade of calendar discs in Arabic», wrote Christie’s, a British auction house founded in 1766. However, the watch is more than just that: The watch’s calendar is not a normal Gregorian one, but rather an Islamic one, «requiring a custom modification of the calendar gears», wrote the luxury auction house.
King Hassan II’s watch boasts a dial in Breguet tradition: a «silvered solid gold plate completely engine-turned, save for the satin-finished hour chapter ring and the equally finished two 'cartouches' with the Breguet and Chaumet signatures».
A watch worthy of a King
The watch has a specific case on top that reads the Hijri months in Arabic, with a different engine-turning used for the borders of the hour ring attesting to a momentous attention to detail, worthy of a king.
And as Chaumet was the owner of Breguet at the time of the manufacturing of the timeless piece, the two brands signed their names on the dial. In a visually pleasing coincidence, the names of the brands stood on equal footing, accounting for the same length, «thus fitting into two equally sized cartouches which add balance to the piece».
The watch’s case is an octagon with rounded corners and a diameter of 36 mm. On its back, the watch is stamped JHP, which stands for the author of this masterpiece, renowned casemaker Jean-Pierre Hagmann, who also worked for luxury brands like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet.
The watch’s bracelet, a woven and textured one, is made by another big name in the field: Jean-Pierre Ecoffey, the most prominent bracelet maker active at the time.
This watch holds another surprise. The bracelet is stamped «Audemars Piguet». According to Christie’s research in Breguet’s archives, this stamp suggests that the watch’s bracelet is original to the watch and was «selected by the Chaumet brothers, owners of Breguet, retailers of Audemars Piguet and suppliers of the King of Morocco at the time, as the perfect choice for this exquisite timepiece».
The same source proudly announces that this Hijri watch is «one of the few true lost horological treasures from the late 20th century».
Breguet and Chaumet sold this masterpiece to the late King of Morocco for the sum of 500,000 French Francs at the time. In a May 2017 auction by Christie’s, this prized watch was sold for a final selling price of CHF 87,500.
