The last queen of France, Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755 and sent to France to be the child bride of the future King Louis XVI.
She was guillotined in 1793 at the age of 37, along with her husband, at the height of the French Revolution.
Although Breguet was commissioned to create the watch in 1783, it was not completed until after his own death in 1827.
Nicknamed “the grand complication”, it is believed to be the most valuable watch in the world, and represents something of a holy grail for horologists.
It has a clear crystal dial revealing mechanisms which support on-demand sounding on the hour, quarter hour and minute; a perpetual calendar corrected for the leap year; a thermometer; and an independent second hand that acts as a stopwatch.
The watch was stolen in 1983 and was missing for more than two decades.
Its arrival in London marks the first time the watch has travelled abroad since its safe return to the LA Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 2008.
