Cartier, a superb Art Deco diamond bracelet, 1920, designed as a strap, composed of articulated

Cartier, a superb Art Deco diamond bracelet, 1920, designed as a strap, composed of articulated panels of subtle Indo-Persian inspiration, pavé-set with circular- and single-cut diamonds, each centring on an Asscher-cut diamond, weighing approximately 1.25, 1.66, 1.80, 1.65 and 1.45 carats, spaced by open links pavé-set with single-cut diamonds, and pairs of domed links set with single-cut and baguette diamonds, mounted in platinum, total approximate diamond weight 20.00 carats, length 18cm, signed Cartier London

The signature on this extraordinary bracelet proudly reads ‘Cartier London’, and exemplifies the superb workmanship produced above the firm’s New Bond Street premises in the interwar period.

Cartier London was the firm’s first permanent foreign branch, founded in 1902, in response to demand from members of the British aristocracy, who inundated the Paris branch with commissions in preparation for the upcoming coronation of Edward VII. Edward was himself a key client of Cartier Paris, famously describing them as ‘jeweller of kings and King of Jewellers’, and supposedly personally persuading Cartier to set up a permanent base closer to him in London. Initially, the London branch was established at 4 New Burlington Street, and in 1909 it moved to 175/6 New Bond Street, where it remains to this day, managed from 1906 by Jacques Cartier, one of the three sons of Alfred Cartier. Dividing the world between them, the other two brothers managed the branches in Paris and New York respectively.

For the first two decades of its existence, Cartier London was essentially an importer of jewels made by Cartier Paris, but in 1921 this changed. Cartier London brought their manufacturing in house, hiring and rigorously training a team of predominantly British master craftsmen, and establishing the atelier English Art Works Ltd above their store at 175/6 New Bond Street.

The late 1920s and 1930s were a highpoint for the London branch, which produced an array of jewels in a self-assured, mature Art Deco style, which retained traces of the firm’s scholarly, colourful exoticism of the 1920s, while moving forwards into the bolder, simpler aesthetic of the new decade, silently glittering with white diamonds.

This bracelet shows Cartier’s genius for softening the simple geometry of the Art Deco style with subtle nods to Southern and East Asian decorative arts. The larger links are cut out on each side, and the curving outline created by this negative space ingeniously follows the distinctive stylised floral outline, borrowed from decorative motifs across Mughal, Persian and Chinese decorative arts, that formed a key element of Cartier’s style vocabulary in the Art Deco era.

The principal stones of this bracelet would have also been especially sought after at the time: a distinctive 58-facet square emerald cut is known as the ‘Asscher’ cut. It was named after its creator Joseph Asscher, who famously cleaved the Cullinan diamond. With its geometric facet pattern, it was hugely ahead of its time when it became the first patented diamond cut in 1902, the same year that the Cartier family made their groundbreaking decision to found their London branch, and their key London patron was crowned King.

Cf.: Judy Rudoe, Cartier: 1900-1939, British Museum, 1997, p. 270, no, 206, for examples of Cartier’s use of these floral motifs, see a pair of earrings made by Cartier London for Viscountess Harcourt in 1924, and nos. 208 and 209 for examples made by Cartier Paris in 1926.