Cartier

SJX
[Purist]
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Cartier's history as a watchmaker - the Cartier Collection of vintage timepieces at SIHH

The Cartier Collection is the tangible respository of the maison's rich history - 1000 items spanning jewellery, timepieces, objet d'art. A good number of them are timepieces in every conceivable shape, size, form and function. At SIHH in January earlier this year, Cartier exhibited just under 300 timepieces from the Cartier Collection were on show, demonstrating Cartier's long history in timepieces. And take note, this important exhibition will be travelling to various cities around the world - more information on this tour later. 

Quite obvious from the collection on show were two historical trends. The first is obvious: the development and proliferation of the various iconic case shapes, like the Tank or Santos, over the century.

Above: Cartier watches from the early 20th century -  the origins of Tortue, Cloche, Santos, Pasha et al 

Less visible, but more important, is the waxing and waning of Cartier's watchmaking over its history.

Beginning with decorated pendants, clocks and pocket watches in the 19th century, and then the famous case shapes came along, along with the stunning haute horlogerie EWC movements of the twenties and thirties.

After that Cartier watchmaking enters a plateau of sorts in terms of complications for much of the second half of the 20th century. One of the icons from this era is the Cartier London Crash of course.

Then the pace picks up in the late eighties, with the high complications using Gerald Genta, at the time one of the few makers of complicated movements (shown below), followed by the Collection Privee Cartier de Paris in 1997.

The exhibition stops with the CPCP (pictured below), but everyone knows what happened after that - the incredible Fine Watchmaking range of complications that told the world Cartier is serious about what it is doing.

I didn't take photos of everything due to my tight schedule during the fair, and the fact that I was fatigued after taking more than 300 photos of the 2011 novelties at the Cartier booth. That being said, I already have exclusive, close-up photos of many of the historical timepieces when I visited the Cartier Collection last year. Three of them have already been posted here and more is to come:

 Grande complication pocket watch, c. 1925  

Tank 8 Days, c. 1938  

Tortue Minute Repeater Wristwatch, c. 1928    

Here are the rest of the photos of the timepieces on display.

- SJX

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