Cartier Large Print Online

Large Print Guide

Cigarette case

Cartier Paris, 1922
Gold and enamel

This case’s inscription celebrates automobile manufacturer
André Citroën’s trek by car across the Sahara Desert.

Five-dial clock (and
custom-made case)

Cartier New York, 1930

Ebonite, silver, nephrite,

and enamel

Private collection

Pierre Cartier, who oversaw Cartier’s New York boutique

for more than thirty years, and his American wife, Elma,

were dedicated cultural ambassadors for their native

countries. Pierre presented this clock to President Franklin

Roosevelt in 1943, as a tribute to America’s decisive role

in World War II. Multiple dials display the time in important

Allied and Axis cities.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Table cigarette box

Cartier Paris, 1929
Silver, gold, onyx, ebonite, cedar,
and enamel

In gratitude for a round-the-world yacht cruise, Pierre
Merillon presented this cigarette box to William K.
Vanderbilt II and his wife. As a special touch, the dedication
to his hosts is inscribed in Merillon’s handwriting.

Tortue single-button
chronograph wristwatch

Cartier New York, 1929
Gold, leather strap
A chronograph is a stopwatch,
used to time races and other
events.

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Split-seconds chronograph
pocket watch

Cartier New York, 1929
Gold

A split-seconds chronograph has two timing hands.
The timing button activates both hands. When the
split-seconds button is pushed, one hand stops to indicate
elapsed time. Pushing the button again causes that hand
to catch up and mark the new elapsed time. The user can
thus record multiple finishers in a race.

Ship’s-bell pocket watch

Cartier Paris, 1926
Gold and enamel

Minute repeaters chime the hour, quarter hour, and
minute when the button is depressed. This specialized
model chimes the eight bells of the four-hour watches
manned by the shifts of a ship’s crew. It was owned by
William B. Leeds, a yachting enthusiast and son of Cartier
client Nancy Leeds.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Minute-repeating pocket
watch with perpetual
calendar and phases of
the moon

Cartier Paris, 1925
Platinum and yellow gold
Private collection

This extraordinary watch incorporates multiple
“complications” or special functions: in addition to acting
as a stopwatch, it indicates weekday, date, month, and
phases of the moon.

Cuff links

Cartier, about 1920
Platinum and sapphires
Pierre Cartier Foundation

The sapphires are carved with the profiles of Elma and
Marion, Pierre Cartier’s wife and daughter.

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Large Print Guide

The Workshop

When you spend 3,000 hours to make one necklace,
you want to get it right. Cartier’s artisans have been
meticulously hand-crafting exquisite pieces with
essentially the same tools since the jewelry firm’s
founding in 1847. But their painstaking efforts are
largely anonymous. Jewelry-making at Cartier is a
collaborative effort among designers, jewelers, stone
cutters, stone setters, and polishers, who all face
nerve-wracking challenges in the quest for perfection.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Designer

The designer sketches out ideas and
finally creates a detailed, life-size
drawing of his or her vision for a piece.

Jeweler

The jeweler translates the designer’s
drawing into three dimensions.

Stone Setter

The stone setter places and secures
the cut stones into metal settings
created by the jeweler.

Stone Cutter

The stone cutter cuts the stones to fit
the design and is responsible for making
the stones shine.

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Polisher

The polisher polishes only the metal—
not the stones (that’s the stone cutter’s
job). A piece goes to the polisher
multiple times as it is being made.

Plaster Casts

Cartier began systematically
documenting every finished piece in
the early 1900s. Photographs and
plaster casts were created at actual
size, to provide as accurate a record
as possible.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century
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Age of Glamour

The Great Depression of the 1930s reduced fortunes
around the world. Cartier continued to create opulent
diamond, emerald, and ruby jewelry, but its designers
also used less expensive colorful gemstones such as
aquamarine, citrine, peridot, and lapis lazuli to create
relatively affordable pieces. Jeanne Toussaint, who
became Cartier Paris’s director of fine jewelry in 1933,
favored large stones and a dramatic, sculptural look.
World War II caused precious-metal shortages and
economic austerity, limiting Cartier’s production. At
war’s end, pent up demand for glamour and luxury
surged. But society was becoming less formal, and
gold jewelry—previously suitable for daytime only—
could now be worn for both day and evening.
Cosmopolitan heiresses, playboys, and celebrities—
the “jet set”—gathered at international destinations for
extravagant parties, where spectacular jewels and chic
vanity cases were on prominent display.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Necklace

Cartier London, 1938, lengthened
by Cartier Paris in 1963
Platinum, diamonds, and
emeralds
Private collection

Actress Merle Oberon (best known for her performance
in Wuthering Heights) received this necklace from her
husband, movie director Alexander Korda. She wore it in
several films.

Necklace and bracelet

Cartier London, special order,
1936
Platinum, diamonds, and peridots

Yellow-green peridot, also called olivine or chrysolite, is
closely associated with diamonds because it is found in
kimberlite, the igneous rock that carries diamonds to the
surface of the earth.

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Tiara

Cartier London, 1937
Platinum, diamonds, and
aquamarines

Although tiaras dipped in popularity in Paris and New
York in the 1930s, they were mandatory at court events
celebrating the 1937 coronation of King George VI of
England, and Cartier London continued to create them.

Buckle bangle

Cartier London, 1937
Yellow and white gold, platinum,
and diamonds

The rules for what was proper in jewelry began to change
during the 1930s. Gold—sleek, heavy, and sometimes
set with diamonds—was popular for both jewelry and
accessories, and was now considered acceptable for
evening wear.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Powder compact

Cartier New York, 1946
Gold and rubies

Actress Vivien Leigh (who played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone
with the Wind) purchased this compact in 1952.

Necklace, bracelet,
and pair of earrings

Cartier Paris, special order, 1951
Platinum, gold, diamonds, and
rubies
Matching suites of jewelry became popular in the 1950s.
This set was owned by Lady Lydia Deterding, who
supplied her own rubies. Lydia was born in Russia. Her
second husband, Henri Deterding, was a wealthy Dutch
oil executive.

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Large Print Guide

Cartier’s Panthers

Appointed head of jewelry in 1933, Jeanne Toussaint
steered the firm toward a bold, three-dimensional style
based on nature. Under her leadership, Cartier produced
flower, bird, and insect designs, but she is most famous
for the big cat jewelry Cartier created from the 1940s on.
Nicknamed “the Panther” for her grace and strength of
character, Toussaint’s striking feline brooches, bracelets,
and earclips effectively expressed the personality of
modern, assertive women such as the Duchess of Windsor.

Panther clip brooch

Cartier Paris, 1949
Platinum, white gold, diamonds,
and sapphires,
including a 152.35-carat rounded
Kashmir sapphire cabochon

A cabochon is a gem that has been shaped and polished
rather than cut into facets. It typically has a rounded top
and flat bottom.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century
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Large Print Guide

Icons of Style

A growing internationalism characterized the
twentieth century, fueled by continual improvements
in transportation and communications. Social,
cultural, and political leaders traveled the world in
speedy ocean liners and later, in jet airplanes.
Cinema created a whole new class of celebrity,
idolized by a global audience. Radio and television
transmitted lifestyle and fashion trends ever more
widely and rapidly. Cartier retained its favored
status with the era’s most elegant women—the “icons
of style” who helped shape the fashion ideals of the
1900s. For each, Cartier created striking jewels
that not only expressed her personality, but truly
epitomized modern glamour.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Daisy Fellowes
(1890–1962)

Daisy Fellowes was an American heiress to the Singer
sewing machine fortune and daughter of a French duke.
She married a French prince, and later, an English
financier. Renowned for her taste in clothing, jewelry, and
interior design, she was photographed by leading fashion
photographers for more than forty years.

“[Daisy Fellowes] launched more fashions than any other
woman in the world.”—Jean Cocteau, artist and writer

Daisy Fellowes, famous for her daring clothing and
jewelry, was a style editor for Harper’s Bazaar in the
1930s. She was often featured in the magazine’s pages.

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“It was Daisy’s . . . irreverent spirit that made one stare.
She had gone beyond fashion to create a style of her
own.”—Hubert Givenchy, fashion designer
The frontispiece of Daisy Fellowes’s 1933 novel Les Filles
du Diable (The Devil’s Girls) features a portrait sketch by
Jean Cocteau.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Duchess of Windsor
(1896–1986)

Britain’s Edward VIII gave up the throne in 1936 and
accepted the title “Duke of Windsor” in order to marry
the woman he loved: Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced
Americanfrom Baltimore. The couple set up residence
in Paris and traveled and entertained extensively. The
duchess aspired to be the most fashionable woman in the
world, and she and her husband collaborated with Cartier
on the design of her distinctive jewelry.

“We are ours now”—Message engraved on the Cartier
engagement ring given by Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson

“My husband gave up everything for me. I’m nothing to
look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than
anyone else.”—Duchess of Windsor

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“She looks like a period room done by a furniture house,
a room in which nobody can live comfortably. Figuratively
speaking, there are no ashes on her rugs, no papers lying
around, no blinds askew.”—Helen Worden, journalist

Letter

July 2, 1937 letter from the Duke
of Windsor to Cartier
regarding monogram alterations.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Princess Grace of Monaco
(1929–1982)

Born into a well-to-do Philadelphia family, Grace Kelly
starred in a succession of popular movies, playing
opposite Clark Gable, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. In
her last movie, High Society, she wore the Cartier diamond
engagement ring given to her by Prince Rainier of
Monaco, whom she married in 1956. As Princess of
Monaco, she wore diamond-and-platinum jewels at formal
events; for private occasions she loved yellow gold.

“There is a mystique that surrounds Grace . . . It is the act
she put together for survival.”—John Foreman, producer

“I was the only one who noticed . . . whenever she looked
at her Prince or her ring her feelings took possession of
her face.”—Margaret Kelly, Grace Kelly’s mother

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“I believe that it is right to honor all those who create
beautiful things and give satisfaction to those who see me
wearing them.”—HRH Princess Grace of Monaco
In her final movie, High Society, Grace Kelly wore her
Cartier diamond engagement ring.

The 1956 Monaco royal wedding
was watched by millions on
television. In a portrait the same
year, Princess Grace wore
Cartier jewels.

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Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011)

A movie star by the age of twelve, Elizabeth Taylor won
two Academy Awards and a reputation as one of the
century’s greatest actresses. Strong-minded and
passionate, she married eight times (twice to actor
Richard Burton). One constant was Taylor’s legendary
love of jewelry.
“I’ve never thought of my jewelry as trophies . . . for we are
only temporary custodians of beauty.”—Elizabeth Taylor

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Large Print Guide

Scrapbook

At a 1969 auction, Richard
Burton was outbid by Cartier for a
69.42-carat diamond that he wanted
to give to Elizabeth Taylor. Burton
contacted Cartier, and they agreed
to sell him the diamond after exhibiting it in New York.
Press coverage and public interest were huge.
“The stone went from being called the Cartier diamond to
the Taylor-Burton diamond. Originally, I wore the diamond
as a ring, but even for me it was too big, so we had Cartier
design a necklace.” —Elizabeth Taylor

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