When the Marie Antoinette pocketwatch was stolen from the LA Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem one Saturday morning in 1983, museum workers and watch lovers alike were aghast.
Commissioned in 1783 by an admirer of the French Queen, finished in 1827 and crafted by Abraham Louis Breguet, the man known as the father of modern watchmaking, the Marie Antoinette was the most complex watch ever made. It would remain so for more than a century.
