Charles Jacqueau

Although none of Cartier’s designers were noted individually as the firm’s policy was to promote the Cartier name singularly, the history of the firm would not be complete without acknowledging the influence and brilliance of its chief designer Charles Jacqueau. While many of the Cartier design archives are unsigned and difficult to attribute, a number of Jacqueau’s designs have survived, descended from his personal collection. He joined the firm as a young artist in 1909 and is credited with creating some of the most innovative and artful pieces of the teens and twenties. Taking design inspiration from numerous decorative motifs originating in Egypt, Islam, India, China and Japan, Jacqueau’s interests and inspirations were eclectic and original. Nadelhoffer writes:

The greatest service he rendered Cartier’s and contemporary design in general was to abandon the garland style, espouse bold colors and design, and become the champion of a new aesthetic which, following the First World War, was given official but belated recognition at the 1925 Exposition Internationale Des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes and which later gave its name to an entire period of early twentieth-century art.⁴

found inspiration during his various travels to Italy, Russia, Morocco, and Spain as well as closer to home in the varied exhibits at the Louvre, and the striking costumes, colors and movement of the Ballets Russes, particularly their use of the vibrant combination of blue and green. Jacqueau was instrumental in setting up Department S (S for silver) with Louis. The department was established between the wars, expanding on their remarkable range of luxury objects, such as elaborate desk accessories, cigarette, and vanity cases, by creating still beautiful but relatively affordable functional objects. This echoed Jacqueau’s design ethos that less expensive materials such as coral and agate could be used in the same design with the most expensive gems such as diamonds and emeralds and that great design could be exemplified in setting off a priceless stone with a simple silken cord.

Jeanne Toussaint

In 1914, Cartier introduced a diamond and onyx watch with a design by Charles Jacqueau which was the first of their jewels to feature the peau de panthère style. The panther motif and imagery had long been popular in Europe and the black and white pattern was very much in vogue, particularly in interior décor. In 1917, Louis Cartier had the first fully representational panther piece created atop a black onyx vanity case for Jeanne Toussaint, whom he affectionately called “Panther”. Jeanne Toussaint, (1887-1978) initially the creative director of Department S was, by 1933, overseeing Cartier’s haute joaillerie department where she reigned for several decades as a highly influential creative force. While not a jewelry designer herself, Jeanne Toussaint had an unerring eye for fashion and design, known in her younger years for wearing dramatic turbans and long strands of pearls. She is widely credited with several key design motifs by Cartier including the development of the now-iconic range of panther jewels.

Judy Rudoe writes:

…she was almost certainly responsible, for example, for the fashion for wearing imported Indian jewellery. In the late 1930s, quantities of gold and gem-set jewellery were purchased in India by Cartier London agents at her request. After the Second World War, it was Toussaint who, in collaboration with the designer Peter Lemarchand (1906-70), developed the earlier panther motif into a three-dimensional representation of the animal studded with sapphires instead of onyx and seated on a huge sapphire for a brooch made for stock in 1949 and purchased by the Duke of Windsor as a present for the Duchess.⁵

Further exploration and development of the panther motif were facilitated by an affiliation between Jeanne Toussaint and Peter Lemarchand, a graduate of l’École Boulle, who joined Cartier in 1927. Perhaps the most well-known and important of the panther pieces ever produced is the fully articulated bracelet with diamonds and calibré-cut black onyx created for the Duchess of Windsor in 1952. The piece was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2010 for a breathtaking seven million dollars making it the most expensive bracelet ever sold at auction.

Another noteworthy example of Toussaint’s collaborative efforts and felicitous relationship with the Windsors is the famous Flamingo clip brooch crafted with stones from the Windsor’s own collection and famously delivered to them just days before Germany’s 1940 invasion of Paris.

Clocks & Watches

Cartier originally met their client’s demands for timepieces by buying important pieces at auction and making selections from specialist dealers. In the 1890s they were chiefly supplied by the great watch-making firm of Vacheron & Constantin of Geneva. 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.⁶

The table clocks of the early 1900s were designed to reflect the same garland-style eighteenth-century décor aesthetic used to inspire their jewelry, incorporating wreath, vase and garland motifs. The materials used in their manufacture were marble, hardstone, and porcelain with enameled and jeweled cases. A number of different firms were involved in the production of Cartier table clocks including movements supplied by the firms of Bredillard and Prevost and enameled cases by workshops such as Dubret. Later models, inspired by the work of Fabergé, were enameled in pastel shades of violets, pinks, pale blues and spring greens over engine-turned designs. 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). He first learned the craft at his father’s workshop in Evreux and further honed his skills in the Paris studio of Prevost before eventually setting up his own workshop. By 1911 Couet was supplying table clocks exclusively to Cartier and eight years later, in 1919, he 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. Along with Couet, the workshop had its own team of clock designers but many of the more important pieces, including Mystery Clocks, were designed by the Cartier jewelers Charles Jacqueau and Georges Remy.

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 saw-toothed 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 twelve 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, which were designed as freestanding Oriental porticos featuring dragons or Buddhas.

Cartier first started producing ladies’ wristwatches in the late 1880s. These small, jeweled creations typically featured rectangular, octagonal or round bezels, pavé-set with diamonds and fitted with black moiré silk straps, or bracelets of fine black cord or seed pearls. It was not until the early 1900s when fashion allowed for shorter sleeves and evening wear, without long gloves, that wristwatches became appreciated as a fashion jewelry item. Tonneaus and oval baignoires models gained quick popularity and cabochon ruby, sapphire, or pearl winding buttons became associated with the firm.

While women were wearing their jeweled wristwatches, the pocket watch was still favored by men up through the first decade of the 1900s. That was to change with the debut of two now-iconic wristwatches: the Santos and the Tank. The Santos wristwatch 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 watch, 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.

Just as Cartier’s clock department was able to employ the extraordinary talents of Maurice Couet, their small watches came under the purview of another great talent, Edmond Jaeger (1850-1922). Jaeger learned his trade working for several well-respected companies, the most formative of these was the Breguet workshops in Paris. By 1905 he had his own company and in 1907 signed a fifteen-year contract with Cartier giving them exclusive rights to his products. The European Watch and Clock Company was founded in 1919 as a joint venture between Cartier and Edward 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.

Modern

Louis and Jacques Cartier both died in 1942 and Pierre, who went on to become the president of Cartier International, retired in 1945. Cartier continued to be run by their descendants: Jean-Jacques Cartier in London and Claude Cartier in New York. In 1972, a group of investors headed by Joseph Kanoui acquired control of Cartier Paris and appointed Robert Hocq as President. Shortly afterward they acquired the London branch as well. When Cartier New York was sold in 1976, the purchasing investors appointed Joseph Kanoui as chairman and by 1979, the three separate branches were united as “Cartier World”. The world’s leading luxury group, Compagnie Financière Richemont SA, currently owns Cartier, with numerous branches worldwide. The firm continues to be known for its fine jewelry, many pieces referencing their noted design achievements from the turn of the twentieth century such as the panthere design, Santos and Tank watches and the Trinity tri-colored gold combination.