Editor’s Note
This article explores the glittering history of a renowned French jewellery house, a favourite among the elite. It begins at a high-stakes Sotheby’s auction in 2023, where two record-breaking gemstones sold for nearly $35 million each, setting the stage for a tale of artistry, legacy, and enduring allure.
The history of the famous French jewellery brand favoured by the rich and famous is as glittering as it is intriguing.
With almost $100m of jewellery up for sale, the atmosphere in Sotheby’s New York City auction house on June 8, 2023, was understandably excited – tense even. ‘Magnificent Jewels’ was the name of the sale, and two of the items on offer – the Estrela de Fura ruby from Mozambique and the Eternal Pink diamond from Botswana – ended up selling for $34.8m each.
As the auctioneer wielded his gavel, many of the world’s greatest jewellery collectors, or at least their humble representatives, looked on, enthralled. Others were bidding remotely. This was a room where you needed to keep your wits about you – a mere scratch of the nose and you might become the unwitting owner of an antique necklace or a priceless gemstone.
That day two beautiful pieces of jewellery had experts particularly excited. Both had been manufactured by the French luxury-goods brand Cartier. The first, a 33.51-carat Burmese sapphire ring, sold for $3.3m, while a matching necklace with five Kashmir sapphires went for an equally impressive $2.8m.
Back in 1847, When young Louis-François Cartier first set up his tiny business as a manufacturer of “jewellery, fancy decorations and novelties”, he would never have believed it possible that items bearing his name might one day sell for millions of dollars each. During that period, the average wage was two francs a day $3m would have constituted the GDP of a small nation.
Despite a faltering launch, which coincided with the French Revolution of 1848 and the accompanying financial crisis, Louis-François was soon making a name for himself from his workshop on Rue Montorgueil, in the centre of Paris. After Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had created the Second French Empire three years later, conditions were favourable again for luxury goods. Louis-François bought a new showroom at 5 Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, in the fashionable Palais-Royal quarter. Suddenly he was drawing in the wealthy, upper-class clients he had always dreamed of. His first truly top-drawer client was the Comtesse de Nieuwerkerke, the wife of Paris’s superintendent of fine art, who bought more than 50 pieces. But it was Princesse Mathilde Bonaparte, the niece of Napoleon Bonaparte and owner of “the most beautiful neckline in Europe”, who cemented Cartier’s reputation as jewellery-maker for the aristocracy. Initially asking him to repair one of her necklaces, she then became a regular customer, eventually buying more than 200 items from him.
Aristocratic and celebrity customers were to prove crucial for Cartier’s global dominance of the jewellery trade. For his coronation in 1902, King Edward VII ordered 27 tiaras, later issuing the company with a royal warrant. “King of Jewellers and Jeweller of Kings”, he called them. By the start of the 20th century, with Louis-François’s grandsons, Louis, Pierre and Jacques, now overseeing an international brand, Cartier had become official supplier to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Alfonso XIII of Spain, George I of Greece, Queen Marie of Romania and King Chulalongkorn of Siam, among others. Louis Cartier ran the Paris branch from the headquarters on Rue de la Paix, while the middle brother, Pierre, set up branches in London (on New Burlington Street) and New York City (on Fifth Avenue), later ceding the London branch to the youngest brother, Jacques. As the 20th century progressed, so did Cartier’s brilliant designs. The garland-style jewellery, the Art Deco pieces, the stunning clocks, the innovative wristwatches, the famous gemstones, the clever use of platinum – they all ensured that the great and the good continued to be dazzled by their creations.
In 1925, India’s Maharaja of Patiala spent the modern-day equivalent of $2.5bn on jewellery from the French brand. Grace Kelly’s engagement ring from Prince Rainier III was Cartier, as was the Princess of Wales’s wedding tiara. Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot, Yves Montand and Pablo Escobar also spent their hard-earned cash on the brand.
Rachel Garrahan is co-curator of a new Cartier jewellery exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. She stresses how much of the company’s success was down to the genius of the three brothers, Louis, Pierre and Jacques.
Garrahan says Louis was the most creative of the trio, with a brilliant vision for the future. When it came to gemstones, it was Jacques who was the most knowledgeable – indeed, his 1911 trip to India imbued future Cartier jewellery with an eastern style that proved very popular. And Pierre was the great entrepreneur of the three.
The brothers were also brilliant at wooing potential clients.
But at the core of the company’s enduring appeal was the famous ‘Cartier style’, as it became known. Francesca Cartier Brickell is the author of *The Cartiers: The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire*.