The first exhibition in 30 years dedicated to the legendary French maker Cartier continues at the V&A this month. But how did the family-run atelier become one of the most important jewellers in the world? Article by Lang Antiques

King Cartier

Known as “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers”, the illustrious firm of Cartier has been at the forefront of some of the most important jewellery design trends of the 20th century. Ranging from the opulence of la belle epoque, the geometry, and exoticism of the art deco movement to the development of the classic wristwatch and ornate clocks, Cartier has created some of the most iconic pieces in the history of jewellery. It has exerted an enduring influence on design and craftsmanship and has become one of the most widely recognised symbols of luxury and elegance in the world.

Maison origins

Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier (1819-1904). This was during the period between the abdication of King Louis Philippe and the establishment of the Second Empire when the 19th-century Parisian jewellery market was already dominated by established maisons, and gaining recognition among affluent clients was difficult.

The situation wasn’t helped by the political instability following the 1848 revolution when the demand for luxury businesses like Cartier was lower.

But Cartier withstood these early fluctuating fortunes of the luxury goods market and began to thrive. By 1856 they had secured the patronage of Princess Mathilde, second cousin of Napoleon III and, shortly thereafter, the Empress Eugnie. The financial rewards and the prestige accrued as a result of becoming a purveyor to the imperial household allowed the young firm to move to a larger and more desirable site on the Boulevard des Italiens in 1859.

Cartier Luxury goods

While Cartier soon established a name for the fineness of its execution, designs ostensibly reflected the prevailing tastes of the era by retailing mainly gothic and Renaissance revival-style jewellery. It was only in 1899, with its move to rue de la Paix, that the real era of modern Cartier began.

The location was at the epicentre of the French luxury trade. Since 1874, Cartier had been under the leadership of Louis-François’s son, Alfred (1841-1925), and he was joined at the new location by his 21-year-old son, Louis (1875-1942).

In addition to housing many of the most famous jewellery firms of the day, the famed street was also the address for the great fashion houses, most particularly the distinguished firm of Worth. Soon the rue de la Paix became the preeminent shopping address in the world. Paris was considered the reigning centre of fashion and luxury, drawing an elite clientele from all parts of the globe.

Belle époque

The move to the rue de la Paix coincided with a period of extraordinary economic growth and affluence in France and around the world. Cartier was also growing and expanding and had started to shift their emphasis from retailing to design and manufacturing.

Although it produced a small number of pieces in the art nouveau style, Cartier paid scant attention to the movement. It made its distinguishing mark in pioneering the use of platinum in creating the delicate and graceful ‘garland’ style that came to be associated with the belle epoque.

The discovery of the great diamond deposits in South Africa in the late 1860s sparked extravagant diamond jewellery. The technical advances in the manufacturing of platinum enabled designs of great intricacy, strength and flexibility such as found in the spectacular résille designs of Cartier.

The garland style, which took its inspiration from the sumptuous setting and pomp of Louis XIV’s court at Versailles, incorporated bows, flowers, laurel wreaths, vases and garland motifs. 18th-century pattern books were used extensively as inspiration and Louis Cartier also encouraged his designers to keep note of the interesting and ornate architectural details that were to be found throughout the buildings of Paris.

Cartier excelled in adorning both royalty and the very well-off with ornate stomachers (a decorative piece covering the bodice of a dress from the breast to the waist) epaulettes, corsage ornaments, dog collars, lavalieres and tiaras that the elegant fashions of the day demanded.

International expansion

Cartier marked the beginning of the 20th century by opening branches in London and New York, where its wealthiest and most dedicated clientele resided.

The 1902 coronation of Edward VII occasioned a large number of commissions from England’s leading families. Records indicate that Cartier produced 27 tiaras alone for the coronation and the event was instrumental in convincing the firm to seek a permanent presence in London. Indeed, by 1904, it had achieved its first of 15 royal warrants being appointed official purveyors to the court of Edward VII. The London branch came to thrive under the tutelage of Alfred’s youngest son, Jacques Cartier (1884-1941), establishing London-based design and manufacturing workshops.

Move to New York

Opening a Cartier store in New York was a natural progression as many of America’s wealthiest families and business magnates had been travelling to Paris for some time to purchase their jewels from Cartier. By 1906 Alfred had largely retired and Louis and his brother Pierre (1878-1964) operated the Cartier business jointly.

One of their first decisions was to establish a New York presence and workshop in 1909 under the skilled direction of Pierre. Indicative of his business skills, Pierre famously secured Cartier’s present location, an elegant Beaux-Arts mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue, from industrialist Morton F. Plant in 1917.

The building changed hands in exchange for $100 and a double strand of natural pearls, admired by Plant’s wife and valued at $1m, the asking price for the mansion.

Russian branch

Louis Cartier also temporarily established a branch of the firm in St Petersburg in 1908. He ambitiously attempted to capture the Russian market by introducing the latest in Paris jewellery fashions and by directly taking on the famed firm of Fabergé by creating the beloved hard stone sculptures and enamel objects for which the firm was so well renowned.

By all accounts, before the Bolshevik revolution necessitated its closing, Cartier had made significant inroads into the Russian market: creating two ornamental eggs (one a gift from the city of Paris to Tsar Nicholas securing the patronage of the Grand Duchess Vladimir) and creating an unusual rock crystal and diamond wedding tiara for the immeasurably wealthy Princess Irina Youssoupoff.

The extensive travelling that the brothers undertook furthered their international renown and enriched their design aesthetic. Their travels throughout India, Russia the Persian Gulf, Siam, and China brought them both exceptional gems and numerous clients in royal courts and high society throughout the world.

It also brought inspiration to their jewellery designs, helping to establish the firm as one of the foremost exponents of art deco design.

Art deco influence

The year 1910 was a turning point in the design history and influence of Cartier. Inspiration was to be found everywhere: exotic lands, the new modernist movement of Cubist painters such as Picasso and Braque and the bold colours and techniques of artists such as Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Cezanne as well as the strong aesthetic impact of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Cartier’s art deco pieces are characterised by vivid colours such as coral, jade, and lapis and contrasting opaque and translucent materials such as onyx and diamonds.

These unusual combinations created bold and surprising colour combinations, imbuing the geometric lines of the art deco movement with a decidedly exotic influence from Egyptology, the Far East, India and Persia.

While this pioneering style was being produced well before the outbreak of WWI, the movement was not formally recognised until the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes which spawned the term art deco. Cartier’s brilliant display at the exposition was notable not only for its sumptuous jewels but also for the fact the firm was the only jeweller, of approximately 400, to exhibit with the fashion houses in the Pavillon de l’Elegance rather than with the jewellers in the Grand Palais. This choice further underscored Louis’ firm belief in the unity of the decorative arts.

Egyptian motifs

The influence of ancient Egypt had been a factor in the world of art and design since the 18th century. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 furthered this interest, as did the 1911 Franco–Egyptian Exhibition at the Louvre.

Cartier’s early Egyptian-inspired pieces used scarab motifs, lotus blooms and other recognisable symbols wrought in lapis, turquoise and garnet, highlighted by pearls and diamonds.

Pieces in the early 1900s include stylised motifs worked in platinum with diamonds and onyx and punctuated with designs made of calibré-cut emeralds, rubies and sapphires. Following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, the interest in the Egyptian style greatly intensified.

Perhaps inspired by Louis Cartier’s long-standing personal interest and collection, Cartier began designing unique and imaginative pieces around ancient Egyptian faience beads.

Jeanne Toussaint

The panther first appeared in Cartier designs in 1914, with a diamond and onyx watch designed by Charles Jacqueau – the first piece to feature the peau de panthère style.

In 1933, Cartier’s creative director Jeanne Toussaint (1887-1978) made the motif famous. Toussaint was nicknamed “La Panthère” for her bold and sophisticated style and, with Peter Lemarchand (1906-1970) a graduate of l’école Boulle who joined Cartier in 1927, produced the most well-known and important of the panther pieces ever produced. It was a fully articulated bracelet with diamonds and calibrè-cut black onyx created for the Duchess of Windsor in 1952. The piece was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2010 for a breathtaking $7m, making it the most expensive bracelet ever sold at auction.

Mystery clocks

Following the move to the rue de la Paix, Louis Cartier had ambitious plans to expand Cartier’s offerings, focusing on table clocks, greater in-house production and promoting the further development of the wristwatch.

The table clocks of the early 1900s were designed to reflect the same garland-style, 18th-century décor aesthetic used to inspire their jewellery, incorporating wreath, vase and garland motifs. The materials used were marble, hardstone, and porcelain with enamelled and jewelled cases.

The most innovative and spectacular of the Cartier table clocks, however, are the ‘mystery clocks’, which made their debut in 1913.

The talent behind these iconic timepieces was a young watchmaker, Maurice Couet (1885-1963) who set up the Cartier clock workshop at the rue Lafayette employing a number of diverse and highly skilled specialists including lapidarists, watchmakers, enamellers and stone setters.

The hands of a mystery clock seem to operate by themselves, keeping time around a transparent face, typically made of rock crystal, with no visible connection to a movement. Each hand is in fact fixed onto a separate crystal disc set with a sawtoothed metal rim that is driven by gears disguised within the frame of the case. Each part of the clock is completely hand-made and production of a completed clock, even into the 1980s, was a painstaking and laborious process requiring three to 12 months to complete.

The first mystery clock created, called the ’Model A’, with a vertical frame and heavy stone base, was sold to J.P. Morgan. Subsequent models incorporated many different shapes and motifs often with Oriental themes including the famous Portico models, designed as freestanding Oriental porticos featuring dragons or Buddhas.

Cartier watches

While women were wearing jewelled wristwatches, the pocket watch was still favoured by men up until the first decade of the 1900s. That was to change with the debut of two now-iconic Cartier wristwatches: the Santos and the Tank. The Santos was created in 1904 for the famed Brazilian aviator, Alberto Santos Dumont.

A friend of Louis Cartier, he had difficulty using a pocket watch to gauge his performance time while in flight. Strapping on a wristwatch proved eminently practical and the Santos Dumont wristwatch officially went on sale to the public in 1911.

The Cartier Tank, whose clean lines are reputed to have been inspired by the silhouettes of American tanks in Europe during WWI, was designed by Louis Cartier in 1917 and went on sale two years later.

The Tank was the result of another Cartier talent Edmond Jaeger (1850-1922), who learned his trade working for several well-respected companies. By 1905 he had his own company and, in 1907, signed a 15-year contract with Cartier giving it exclusive rights to his products.

The European Watch and Clock Company was founded in 1919 as a joint venture between Cartier and Jaeger and supplied nearly all of the watch movements for Cartier Paris. Cartier also worked with such well-known watch and clock firms as Vacheron Constantin, Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet.

Tutti Frutti

It wasn’t until the 1970s that Cartier’s signature jewellery gained the name “Tutti Frutti” – before then they were referred to as “pierres de couleur” or “Hindou jewels”. Their origins date to 1911, when Jacques Cartier set sail on his first voyage to India. His trip coincided with the two-weeklong spectacle known as the Delhi Durbar, which celebrated the coronation of George V as Emperor of India.

The purpose of the trip was two-fold: attracting new clients from the country’s jewel-obsessed elite, and exploring the local gemstones and traditional techniques.

Back home Cartier was abandoning the delicate swags and festoons of earlier decades to introduce bold colour and motifs from ancient cultures. Tutti Frutti embraced brightly-coloured, rubies, sapphires and emeralds set in attractive floral designs.

From the first piece produced in 1923, the design has retained its popularity. An art deco Tutti Frutti bracelet dated to 1928 sold for a record-setting price of $1,887,232 in 2011.

The Cartier Crash

The Cartier Crash was born in Cartier’s London boutique on Bond Street, a location renowned for its avant-garde and boundary-pushing designs.

Jean-Jacques Cartier, who led the London branch, fostered an environment of creative autonomy that resulted in some of the maison’s most extraordinary pieces. Despite its striking resemblance to the melted timepieces in Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, the Crash has no direct connection to the surrealist masterpiece. Rather, in 1967, Jean-Jacques Cartier saw an opportunity to produce something bold and entirely new embodying the creative spirit of the Swinging Sixties.

It was created with Rupert Emmerson, one of the main designers who helped bring Cartier London to the forefront of design. The original Crash was exceptional, not just for its shape, but also its size, which at 3mm long and 25mm wide was larger than its French siblings.

Cartier is on at the V&A, London, from April 12 to November 16. San Francisco-based Lang Antique & Estate Jewellery offers one of the world’s largest collections of vintage jewelry, including pieces by Cartier. For more details, and the original source citations for this article (from its Antique Jewelry University) go to www.langantiques.com