Cartier’s Into the Wild high jewellery collection introduces five new animals and expresses itself with a great blow of the jaw, beak or muzzle.
Cartier’s jewellery fauna draws its creative vitality from the history of the Maison.
It has held a privileged status from the dawn of the twentieth century with the introduction of birds and then insects. Then came the first reptiles, felines and chimeras, followed by the zebra and the elephant.
This world is populated by magnetic creatures over whom the emblematic Panther reigns, first appearing in her three-dimensional sculptural form in 1948. They perpetuate Cartier’s heritage and pay tribute to the great diversity of unexpected species that make up its animal repertoire.
In this gallery of sculptural animal portraits, there are pieces of jewellery with the tiger, parrot, carp, crocodile and rhinoceros. From the Arctic to the tropics, from the seabed to arid lands, Cartier observes nature as closely as possible to its anatomy. This is where the Maison’s métiers come in, from the jeweller to the lapidary, from the gem-setter to the watchmaker, linked by the same adventure. Together, they articulate, sculpt and polish.
Cartier’s Bedazzled Animal Heads Exude Character
Rings with tiger, parrot, carp, crocodile or rhinoceros heads, this jewellery collection expresses itself with a great blow of the jaw, beak or muzzle. This powerful approach echoes in particular through the Panther’s head ring, created in the 2000s.
From one head to another, Cartier cultivates the art of colour contrasts according to one of the Maison’s great historical traditions. There is red and green for the parrot, coral and tsavorite garnets. There is orange and opaline for the rhinoceros, spessartite garnet and smoky quartz.
And, finally, white, black and green for the crocodile, diamonds, onyx spikes and emeralds. This palette of colours sometimes uses shades of blue for tiger and carp, between sapphire, aquamarine and dumortierite quartz.
Created in Cartier’s jewellery workshops, each of these creations is based on a succession of specific savoir-faire inherited from Cartier’s long jewellery tradition which has always focussed on representing animals.
Techniques Introduce Detail
The jeweller chisels each head, fuses metals such as the platinum and yellow gold of the parrot and alternates surfaces of white gold, polished or brushed by hand, as close as possible to its original colour.
True signatures of the Maison are its paving techniques, such as the fur setting or calibrated sapphires set with rails, which evoke the fur of the tiger, the scales of the crocodile or the edge of the carp’s lips.
This multitude of jewellery techniques conveys the impression of wild nature, like the galuchat-effect paving in white diamonds sprinkled with sapphires on the tiger ring, a jewellery metaphor for ice and chrystallisation.
Two Sensory Bracelets and Necklaces
True feats of the atelier, the crocodile and tiger sets evolve between realism and abstraction. On the one hand, the head is made as close as possible to the real anatomy and, on the other, the body, entirely flexible, for which Cartier has an abstract and graphic motif.
These two intentions are driven by a single objective: to restore the living nature of the animal.
The Crocodile Bracelet and Necklace
The crocodile head clasp cultivates shades of white, green and black: three colours that are part of the Maison’s chromatic heritage, underlining and accentuating contrasts. Fully integrated into the mouth of the animal that bites the back of the bracelet, its ingenious system has been the subject of a very special development.
This sculptural crocodile head is covered by scales represented by a combination of diamonds whose geometric shapes echo the onyx spikes, an aesthetic code of the Maison, which represent the crocodile’s crest.
The crocodile’s strap favours rhythm and extreme fluidity, that of a fully articulated structure. Everything must remain mobile, sensorial on the skin, a veritable wave of diamonds set in an inverted setting and punctuated with onyx. This vitality is further accentuated by the cuff’s borders hemmed with chrysoprase and rubellites.
The Tiger Bracelet and Necklace
The tiger head clasp opts for shades of blue, dumortierite quartz for the stripes, sapphire paving for the head and body and aquamarine for the eyes. Cartier highlights the graphic galuchat-effect setting of the diamonds on this sculptural head. Its opening and closing system, hidden inside the animal’s mouth, required specific development in order to fully integrate the system and avoid any break in the line of the bracelet.
The tiger bracelet features an abstract pattern, a succession of dumortierite quartzes and sapphires that rests on a fully articulated gold structure composed of moveable links. This movement is further accentuated by the interplay of materials punctuated by chalcedony beads studded with a sapphire in an inverted setting.
The Panthère de Cartier Set
The emblematic Panther tête-à-tête bracelet adopts the immaculate white of a coat entirely paved and spotted with geometric diamonds. This precious new interpretation is based on the alternation of galuchat-effect paving with different diamond sizes and caviar paving that extends the play of light between the paved zones and the white gold structure.
Crafted in the great tradition of the Maison’s animal savoir-faire, this snow panther is endowed with two emerald eyes encircled by a fur setting that evokes the animal’s fur.
Panthère Jewellery Watch
Created by Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Art located in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, an exceptional place dedicated to rare crafts such as enamel or marquetry, this medallion-shaped
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