Cartier

Cartier was a jeweler before it was a watchmaker, and its early work was much broader than either word suggests. Alongside necklaces and rings, the house sold clocks, cigarette cases and small objects made to a customer's order. Goldsmiths, stone setters, designers and specialist suppliers all contributed. A watch was one of many things Cartier could make.

The business began in 1847, when Louis-François Cartier took over his former master's workshop on rue Montorgueil in Paris. His son Alfred expanded it; the next generation took it abroad. Louis worked in Paris, Pierre helped establish the business in London before developing New York, and Jacques took charge in London. The move to 13 rue de la Paix in 1899 gave the Paris house the address it still occupies.

Those shops brought Cartier into contact with very different kinds of work. An especially good example is the mystery clock. Louis Cartier collaborated with clockmaker Maurice Couët, who produced the first Model A in 1912. Its hands seemed to float inside a transparent face, without a visible connection to the mechanism.

The effect depended on quite ordinary mechanical power, carefully hidden. The hands were attached to transparent discs, driven at their edges by gearing concealed in the frame. The viewer could see through the clock but not see how it worked. Later versions became elaborate objects in rock crystal, jade, coral and precious metals. One 1923 clock took the shape of a Japanese shrine gate, with its movement hidden in the top.

This was not the same design problem as making a thin wristwatch, but the workshops had to solve both. The rectangular Tank appeared alongside far more decorative jewelry watches. Even the panther, now inseparable from Cartier, first appeared as a pattern of dark spots on a jeweled wristwatch in 1914. Under Jeanne Toussaint, appointed head of high jewelry in 1933, the animal became a major subject in its own right.