The Shapes of Cartier
Cartier, Paris
Helm | New York retailed: A rare yellow gold wristwatch in the form of a ship’s wheel with yellow gold bracelet and deployant buckle, Circa 1946
Session begins in
June 15, 02:00 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 40,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Dial: silvered dial signed Cartier, blued steel Breguet hands
Caliber: 7¼’’’ LeCoultre movement signed European Watch and Clock Co. Inc., damascened Côtes de Genève decoration, lever escapement, 18 jewels, bi metallic balance with timing and poising screws, adjusted to temperatures and two positions, flat hairspring
Movement number: numbered to backplate 444'792
Case: 18k yellow gold case, broad flat bezel with spoked section forming the hour markers, stepped outer edge, octagonal stepped winding crown, T-bar Vendôme lugs, inside case back signed European Watch & Clock Co., outside case back stamped 18K, engraved Modèle Déposé, back of case body and case back both stamped Edmond Jaeger in flag-shaped cartouche
Case number: numbered 33'903, outside case back hand stamped 33'903
Closure: 14k yellow gold link bracelet with folding clasp stamped Pat’d, adjustable closure with engraved initials L.C.W., underside of clasp stamped Cartier, 14K, C+B and numbered 23'804
Size: 32.5 mm diameter, bracelet circumference is approximately 180 mm
Accessories: none
François Chaille, Franco Cologni, The Cartier Collection: Timepieces, Paris: Flammarion, 2006. See pp. 396-397 for examples of Cartier Helm watches including those owned by Barbara Hutton and the Maharajah of Kapurthala.
Cartier’s first watches inspired by a ship’s wheel date to around 1910. These early examples featured solid, rather than pierced, bezels adorned with collet-set sapphire cabochons around the case’s perimeter to evoke the wheel’s handles, one of which served as the winding crown.
Cartier had already experimented with the skeletonized bezel concept in some of their early clock designs, notably it can be seen on some of their iconic Art Deco mystery clocks. Archival images from the 1930s reveal Cartier pocket watches with perforated bezels that are cut and shaped to form hour indexes and then sometimes sandwiched between crystal covers. These could be in Roman numeral format or shaped as letters to spell specific words (for examples, see Le Temps de Cartier, Barracca, Negretti, Nencini, 2nd Ed., pp. 194-195). A 1927 rock crystal pocket watch in the Cartier Collection also features a skeletonized bezel with Roman numerals framed by rock crystal covers (see The Cartier Collection: Timepieces, Chaille, Cologni, p. 273)