Fluorite, ivory and agate love bird carving, Cartier, circa 1910

Designed as two carved fluorite love birds with circular-cut demantoid garnet eyes, to an ivory perch and carved agate base, height approximately 157mm, unsigned, partially numbered to base, probably by Varangoz for Cartier, fitted case stamped Cartier.

Cf; Judy Rudoe, Cartier 1900-1939, British Museum Press 1997, page 113, for examples of similar love bird ornaments by Varangoz.
Cf; Reflections of Elegance, Cartier Jewels from the Lindemann Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, 1988, p.82, plate XXIII, for a similar example of a hard stone love bird ornament.
Cf; L'Art de Cartier, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, 1989, p. 59, for a discussion of Cartier's Russian style, plate XXI ,for another similar example of a hard stone love bird ornament.

Numbered 091. Demantoid garnets bright and lively. Fine carving. Fluorite pale green, with variations in colour and visible inclusions throughout, fractures and surface reaching fissures. Areas of dirt lodged in crevices of carving and in fractures to surface. One small area of slight damage to agate. Could benefit from careful professional clean. Accompanied by fitted case stamped Cartier, worn to outside, silk interior worn and damaged.
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At the turn of the nineteenth century fine hard stone carvings of this kind were a particular Russian speciality. Following visits by Pierre Cartier to St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1904 and 1905, lapidaries including Svietchnikov and Karl Woerffel (a major supplier to Fabergé) were engaged to begin producing Cartier‘s own hard stone animals.  Cartier’s attempt to respond to domestic taste and appeal to aristocratic Russian clients by engaging with Russian styles is also evident in their production of clocks and accessories and use of guilloché enamel in the same period. This proved successful and they continued to produce carvings well into the 1920s. The love bird motif first appeared in Cartier’s work in 1881 and was popular enough to appear in jewels, as well as ornaments, throughout the early 20^th century. Probably produced by the Varangoz workshop, approximately 30 variants of this model were recorded in the Paris stock books between 1907 and 1930.