The Cartier name has cachet — whether you’re talking about its history, its jewelry, or even its signature red box with the distinctive gold trim. For more than 175 years, the maison has been the jeweler of choice for kings and queens, and for the wealthiest echelons of society in Europe and the US.
Adorning the rich and famous
The coffers of England’s royal family are filled with Cartier diamond creations — among them the Halo tiara with its 739 brilliant-cut diamonds. The duke of York, later King George VI, purchased the tiara in 1936, and current Princess of Wales Kate Middleton wore it at her wedding in 2011.
American heiresses commissioned Cartier to make them jewelry of lasting value. Marjorie Merriweather Post’s best-known piece may be her Mughal carved-emerald and diamond pendant brooch from 1923. Daisy Fellowes had the 1936 Hindu necklace, which exemplified the house’s tutti frutti design and started the craze for Indian-style jewelry. Doris Duke wore her mother’s lavish Art Deco diamond bracelet, which sold at auction for $1.2 million in 2004. And there was Barbara Hutton’s 1933 wedding gift: the Hutton-Mdivani jadeite necklace, which the Cartier Collection purchased in 2014 for a record $27.4 million. Actress Elizabeth Taylor, who combined glamour with American-style royalty, received a Burmese-ruby and diamond suite as a gift from her husband Mike Todd in 1957; it sold for $5.4 million in 2011.
When it comes to jewelry for everyday wear, Cartier has successfully merged its reputation for exclusivity with financial success in the secondary market. The Tank wristwatch of 1919, the 1924 Trinity ring, and the Love bracelet from 1969 are perennial favorites, worn with equal pleasure by Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z. Cartier’s Mystery clocks, meanwhile, are in a niche all their own; they debuted circa 1912 and are the Holy Grail of horology for collectors.
A family affair
Cartier began modestly when Louis-François Cartier founded it as a retail company in 1847. As with many family businesses, it was the successive generations that made the Cartier name synonymous with excellence. His son Alfred, whose tenure at the helm of Cartier began in 1874, led the firm to greatness; two decades on, Cartier was one of France’s leading jewelry houses.
Expansion of the Cartier empire was born of necessity. Clients who had been coming to Paris — including wealthy Americans — also wanted to shop where they lived. Alfred’s three sons spearheaded a tidy reallocation of assets and sales: Louis, the eldest, remained in Paris to run the flagship; Jacques ran the London branch, which opened in 1902; and Pierre came to New York in 1909 to offer personalized service to the city’s robber barons, the newly minted millionaires of the period. There is perhaps no greater symbol of Cartier’s value at the time than the double strand of natural pearls that financier Morton F. Plant bought from the maison in exchange for his Beaux-Arts mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue — still the home of Cartier’s New York flagship.
The legends and the legendary make Cartier distinctive. Any “best of Cartier” list would be remarkably long, but who doesn’t recognize the tutti frutti jewels, the Flamingo pin, the panther perched on a sapphire cabochon, the carved coral chimeras, the Art Deco diamond masterworks? As Britain’s King Edward VII once said, Cartier is “the jeweler of kings and the king of jewelers.”
The Dealer’s Take
Gus Davis, owner of New York estate jeweler Camilla Dietz Bergeron, shares why Cartier still holds a venerated place in people’s hearts.
Cartier was always ahead of its time and of everyone else. What sets it apart from the other houses is that it did anything and everything for its clients.
There was socialite Barbara Hutton and her tiger brooch, actress María Félix and her diamond snake necklace, Elizabeth Taylor and her Peregrina pearl necklace. Each of these pieces is art. Cartier made fabulous tiaras, those incredible Mystery clocks, whimsical pins and important necklaces. Among designers, there was Jeanne Toussaint, whose jewelry took the duke and duchess of Windsor to the next level — look at that Flamingo pin! — and Aldo Cipullo, who made the Love bracelet iconic for everybody.
I remember about 30 years ago, my company cofounder Camilla Dietz Bergeron and I bought a beautiful Cartier tutti frutti bracelet with this magnificent carved Mughal sapphire in the center. I think we paid $235,000 for it. We knew the bracelet was special and had great provenance — William Randolph Hearst’s wife bought it in 1927 — so we splurged on it. Back then, people wanted big diamonds; they wanted all that ’80s and ’90s jewelry. They didn’t want Art Deco jewelry, and they sure didn’t want this bracelet that was almost a quarter of a million dollars with very few diamonds. Yet today, it’s part of the Cartier Collection.
When clients ask us for signed estate jewelry, Cartier is one of the top names they request. It has every emotion running through it. That name recognition is always more important than price, because you don’t put Cartier jewelry on a scale and weigh it. On the other hand, no name is bulletproof. Every major house sells jewelry I call commercial — driven by price and intended for the general public.
I don’t like to tell people they have to buy jewelry as an investment. Investment jewelry is different from something you buy and wear every single day. They’re two different categories. And with Cartier, you’re talking about jewelry as a form of art.
Main: The Patiala necklace, which Cartier Paris crafted circa 1928. (Vincent Wulveryck/Cartier)
