Watchmaker Abraham Louis Breggae is regarded as arguably the greatest watchmaker to have ever lived. He was working through one of the most extraordinary moments in modern European history work through the French Revolution. And what she made for Marie Antoinette, unfortunately, she didn't live long enough to see it. She met her, her growth cement too early to work to receive it as a gift. So it was commissioned for her by an unknown admirer, of which she had many.
Called "a poem in clockwork," the self-winding Breguet watch made for Marie Antoinette was meant to be the most beautiful example of mechanical art in the world. Yet when she was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, she wanted only a simple watch that would mark the passing of the hours until her meeting with the guillotine. Listen as Rebecca Struthers, the watchmaker, antiquarian horologist, and author of the Hands of Time talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how our need to keep time has shaped watchmaking history, and how, in turn, the development of watches has shaped human culture and society. Other topics include the precise and painstaking craft of bespoke watchmaking and the challenge of restoring watches from another time.