Cartier jewels — An expert guide

The House of Cartier was founded in 1847 when the 28-year-old Louis-François Cartier took over a shop at 29 rue Montorgueil in Paris In 1914 the first 'Great Cat' motif entered the Cartier family by means of an onyx-spotted panther pattern wristwatch created by the famous French designer Charles Jacqueau Promoted to Director of High Jewellery at Cartier in 1933, Jeanne Toussaint, a feline-lover who was nicknamed 'The Panther' by Louis Cartier and her colleagues, immediately took the responsibility for supervising the 'Great Cat' designs.

Together with the outstanding creativity of designer Peter Lemarchand, she produced a variety of jewels which forever immortalised the feline motif within the context of Cartier design During these hundred years of design, the iconic Cartier cats have gone through multiple variations but they are still considered today as a must-have for jewellery collectors Within two years he had created two of the most iconic Cartier designs: the 'Love' and the 'Juste un Clou' - minimalist, whimsical, and ingenious.

What's not to love when you combine incredible craftsmanship, timeless design and a bit of magic? Very much inspired by the Magic Clocks of famous 19th-century illusionist Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, Maurice Couët, a young clockmaker at Cartier, astonished the industry by exploiting the same illusion, but in a traditional clockmaking way, creating the first ever 'Mystery clock', named 'Model A', for the Maison in 1913. . Source