One of the most brilliant watchmakers of his generation, Daniel Roth first worked for Audemars Piguet in the late 1960s. It was in 1973 that he changed the face of modern horology when he joined Breguet, then a brand on the verge of bankruptcy that only made a handful of timepieces. Roth recreated wristwatches directly inspired by Abraham-Louis Breguet’s pocket watches, producing some of the first modern perpetual calendar and tourbillon wristwatches. Roth left Breguet in 1987 to start his own brand.

Powered by a reworked Lemania ébauche, the present watch is a double dial skeleton tourbillon. Numbered 1, it is most notably the first version of this model that the manufacture produced. The number is finely engraved on the movement, showing the intricacy and delicacy of Roth's work. While the front of the dial shows the hour and minutes along with the tourbillon cage, the case back displays the date and retrograde power reserve.

To the best of our knowledge, the present watch is the only example where the hour and minutes ring is printed directly on the mineral plate below the surface sapphire crystal. Other known examples are fully skeletonized, meaning that the hour and minutes ring itself is actually part of the skeletonized bridge. Given the technical difficulty of cutting and installing an additional crystal plate, one can surmise that Daniel Roth did away with this design detail and instead chose to create a fully skeletonized timepiece after creating the present watch, numbered 1.

Preserved in overall excellent condition, the case displays crisp hallmarks beneath the lugs. Furthermore, the watch is accompanied by its original box and certificate, stating the watch was sold in 1994 at L'Orologeria Pisa.