In 1867, Girard-Perregaux unveiled the 'Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges' a movement architecture devoid of traditional bridges replaced by three “bridges”. The watch won a First Class Bulletin from Neuchâtel Observatory the same year, but ultimate recognition came when the La Esmeralda Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges was presented at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889, where the watch was awarded one of its highest honors, the gold medal.

In 1982 the brand recreated a modern pocket watch of its famous 3 golden bridge tourbillon of 1867, they did so by completely stripping apart the original model and reverse engineering all the components to create the 20th century version. However, the brand did not remain there and worked hard on miniaturing their pocketwatch masterpiece and in 1991 presented the Three Golden Bridges Tourbillon in a wristwatch making it one the very few brands that had mastered the complexity of the tourbillon in wristwatch format.

The present example with delicately guilloché baseplate is one of the very early examples bearing number 15.