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W hen it comes to collecting watches, jewelry or any manner of other tasteful objet, names don’t get bigger or brighter than Cartier. The company is one of the defining design houses of the 20th century, and it continues to hold sway over connoisseurs in every corner of the globe, enticing with new releases and vintage finds in equal measure. The brand has a unique point of view, and its creations are unlike those from anyone else.
This is, in part, due to its extremely unusual history that saw the company split into three separately run branches, each bringing its own influences and icons, before reuniting and blending these perspectives to become an international juggernaut.
Louis-François Cartier founded his eponymous firm in Paris in 1847, first to make jewelry and then later clocks, watches and more. He quickly found acclaim at home and among Europe’s elite, and by the time his three grandsons joined the firm it was already quite the success. Louis, Pierre and Jacques would go on to run the business after their grandfather’s death in 1904. Louis stayed at home in Paris, Jacques managed the London operation and Pierre crossed the Atlantic to open a branch in New York.
The three scions largely ran their businesses independently, though they of course shared designs and certain products across the three locations. However, each developed its own personality, its own book of A-list clients and its own particular inventions. That continued until 1942, when both Louis and Jacques died, leaving Pierre to run all of Cartier from New York. He did this for nearly two decades, until his own death in 1964.
It was at this point that the company underwent its next major upheaval: Cartier was formally divided into three separate companies – Paris, London and New York – and sold to three different entities, ending family control of the company for the first time in over a century of operation.
“Cartier’s strength today comes precisely from its ability to unify these three personalities into a single, global identity.”
“Each branch of Cartier had its own distinct personality,” says Camille Jucker, a Watch Specialist and Head of Sale at Sotheby’s Paris. “Cartier Paris remained the beating heart of the maison, steeped in French elegance and refinement, consistently pushing forward the house’s signature design language. Cartier London had a daring and independent spirit – the branch was smaller, more experimental and catered to a clientele eager for something bold and unique. Cartier New York was cosmopolitan and glamorous, reflecting the American appetite for statement pieces.”
As it so happened, this splut occurred during a surge in creativity and interest in watches and jewelry. The 1960s and ’70s were some of the most fruitful decades for watch and jewelry design, and each of the three Cartier branches led this movement in its own way. That said, business conditions were tough, and Cartier wasn’t immune to the economics of the luxury market, having to find new ways to attract customers and stay afloat.
By the mid-1970s, the three branches were reunited under a new holding company, Cartier Monde, helmed by investor Robert Hocq. It’s this version of Cartier that grew into the mega-brand it is today and that eventually became a cornerstone of the Richemont luxury group, founded in 1988.
This winding road saw Cartier operate at various times as a unified front, a loosely connected consortium and three totally separate companies. It has become one of the company’s greatest strengths, driving interest in a diverse array of vintage pieces and offering a rich archive from which the brand can draw today. The rich history offers myriad opportunities for collectors to chase Cartiers that cater to their personal tastes – and even rare, previously unrecorded examples that escaped the company’s often-porous archives.
Cartier Paris is the original Cartier. The company has operated there uninterrupted for nearly two centuries, and at the historic 13 rue de la Paix since 1899. It would be unfair to characterize this branch as the “conservative” Cartier – many of the company’s most famous designs were iconoclastic at the time of their introduction – but it might be the most classic, distinctly “Cartier” version of Cartier.
“Cartier Paris remained the beating heart of the maison, steeped in French elegance and refinement, consistently pushing forward the house’s signature design language.”
Cartier Paris is where the company’s watchmaking began. The Cartier Santos was famously created by Louis Cartier for his aviator friend Alberto Santos-Dumont in 1904, and it became Cartier’s first ever serially produced wristwatch. It also quickly became an icon, with the exposed bezel screws, square Roman numeral dial and cabochon crown. The Santos has been produced in various iterations over the years, some opting for chunkier, sportier profiles inspired by the watch’s original aviation-centric purpose, others leaning on the refined, elegant look of the yellow gold original. Today, Cartier offers the Santos collection for the former and the Santos-Dumont collection for the latter, showing the full spectrum of the model’s history.
A little over a decade later, Cartier Paris did it again, adding the Tank to its catalogue in 1917. Inspired by the shape of Renault tanks, the Cartier Tank became the watch of the Art Deco age and one of the most instantly recognizable designs of the 20th century – whether you’re talking about watches, fashion or anything else. The original Tank, the so-called Tank Normale, was more similar to that 1904 Santos, with a squarish dial and a case with shorter, sturdier brancards (the technical name for the flanks on either side of a Tank).
“The Tank Normale is emblematic of Cartier Paris and the quintessential Cartier watch,” confirms Jucker. “It is also the origin of the entire Tank lineage and a true symbol of Parisian Art Deco elegance. The Normale did go on to serve as a foundation for countless Tank iterations over the ensuing decades: the long and lean Tank Cintrée, with its curved case and dial, the discreet and streamlined Louis Cartier, the swiveling Tank Emasculate, the idiosyncratic Tank à Guichet, and the contemporary Tank Française, to name just a few.”
If Cartier Paris is understated and quietly confident, Cartier London is bold and creative. Jacques Cartier was known for his outside-the-box thinking and his openness to new ideas. This attitude carried over into the post war period, after Jacques’ death, and made Cartier’s Bond Street outpost one of the coolest shops in the British capital during the mid century.
Cartier London was especially known for being open to suggestions and requests from clients, which resulted in some pretty wild creations when it came to both watches and jewelry (and sometimes combinations of the two). This branch was also known for taking established Cartier designs and putting different spins on them, giving them entirely new personalities in the process.
“Cartier London had a daring and independent spirit – the branch was smaller, more experimental and catered to a clientele eager for something bold and unique.”
A perfect example of this is the Cartier Baignoire. The oval-shaped watch was originally created by Cartier Paris as a custom commission for a Russian Grand Duchess in 1912, but it really came into its own in London in the 1960s. The Baignoire experienced a surge in popularity as Cartier experimented with the curved design, sometimes in more dramatic ways than others. Sometimes they would start with a relatively traditional Baignoire case and add an intricate, integrated gold bracelet, such as with a watch purchased for film director Joseph Losey by actress Elizabeth Taylor in 1967. Like many of the special creations from Cartier London, this was only produced in three examples, making it exceedingly rare. This watch also utilizes a Jaeger-LeCoultre movement – Cartier London tended to source its movements from Switzerland’s best makers.
Around the same time, Cartier London also produced the so-called Maxi Oval, an oversized iteration of the Bagnoire that would go on to inspire Cartier Paris to create the Bagnoire Allongée in the 1970s. It’s the epitome of Swinging Sixties design and pairs the elongated Roman numerals with a subtle “London” signature, a key to the watch’s collectibility today. Apocryphally, a Cartier London customer got into a car accident with their Maxi Oval on-wrist and when they brought it in for repair it became the inspiration for the now-iconic Cartier Crash. Francesca Cartier Brickell disputes this story in her book on the family, but it remains a perfect analogy for how Cartier London thought about design.
The Crash has become a complete pop-culture sensation over the last decade or so, gracing the wrists of countless celebrities (a bit of a baffling phenomenon, given how few Crashes have actually been produced). But before that, it was an insider’s “if you know, you know” calling card for Cartier London. The asymmetrical cases are sculpted individually by hand and there is truly no other watch quite like it – it is one of one. Various series have been produced over the years (including a recent London boutique exclusive in a nod to the watch’s birth), but none are as collectible and desirable as those with London signatures on the dial.
Cartier New York might be the least heralded branch of the company when it comes to design history, but its influence is every bit as strong as that of its European siblings. The company purchased a historic mansion on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue in 1917 in exchange for a string of pearls (that are sadly now lost to history). It established the French import right in the heart of New York’s bustling new commercial district, as the wealthy patrons moved further uptown. It is from this mansion that Pierre Cartier established the Cartier brand in the United States before taking over the entire operation after his siblings’ deaths.
“Cartier New York was cosmopolitan and glamorous, reflecting the American appetite for statement pieces.”
Pierre turned Cartier into a destination and a phenomenon – it was a leading aspirational brand as luxury goods took off on American shores, an effect that would only be amplified after World War II. Today the Cartier Mansion is still as much a tourist attraction as it is a watch and jewelry boutique, having become a bonafide New York landmark over the last century-plus.
Wristwatches were just coming into fashion as Pierre was getting Cartier New York off the ground. While most of Cartier’s early emblematic designs – the Tank, the Santos, the Bagnoire – and less well-known shapes – the Tonneau, the Cloche, the Tortue – were created in Paris and London, they all sold in New York and received their own local treatments with different configurations and sizes. Unlike the London and Paris branches, New York didn’t put its location on the dials of its watches, so you can stop searching for a “New York” dial Tank right now. Many of these watches instead featured dials that simply said “Swiss,” noting where they were crafted. This continued through the post war period and the three companies’ eventual reunification.
While Cartier’s history was certainly winding and nontraditional, it ultimately set the brand up for the success it has today and the cult status it has achieved among collectors of both vintage and modern timepieces. The rarity of vintage models and the diverse creations produced by Paris, London and New York – especially during the period from the end of World War II through the company’s consolidation in the 1970s – provides an incredible archive from which Cartier can draw as it rolls out limited-edition watches like the Cartier Privé series and other small-batch pieces today. It also makes for a brand that could easily consume one’s entire collecting life without ever risking boredom
“Cartier’s strength today comes precisely from its ability to unify these three personalities – the Parisian elegance, the New York glamour and the London audacity – into a single, global identity,” reflects Jucker. “You can still see traces of this heritage in the maison’s modern creations: the timeless refinement of Paris in its Tank and Santos lines, the bold spirit of London in reissues of designs like the Crash and Pebble and the love for spectacular jewelry-watch statements that New York embodied. This rich history is what makes Cartier not just a watchmaker, but a cultural icon.”
Cartier remains famous for its designs in watchmaking, popular with women and men alike for its timeless blend of style and sophistication. Whether you choose the classic Cartier Tank, the modern Cartier Tank Française, a diamond-set model or any of its other variations, you are investing in a watch that will remain a cherished accessory for years to come. Sotheby’s is on hand to support with your next Cartier Tank watch purchase. We have an extensive offering of carefully curated Cartier watches, covering everything from excellent value Cartier Tank Solo watches to extraordinary vintage pieces with fascinating provenance.
Trust our worldwide network of leading Cartier specialists from a globally renowned auction house with a 280-year history.
