A sumptuous tribute to Cartier's creations with spectacular new photographs of unique pieces, many of them appearing for the first time in print. Cartier has defined daring elegance in jewelry design for over a century and a half. Featuring over three hundred color images, many of them full-page, this lavish, satin-bound volume presents Cartier's most recent collections. Each of these modern pieces of high jewelry has been conceived in the spirit of Cartier's core traditional values: creativity, authenticity, and originality. Eight chapters trace the artistic threads and historic sources that have shaped the firm's distinctive style, from famous gem stones to the importance of pure, clean lines and balanced colors, to the exotic flora and distinctive feline shapes that characterize Cartier's more exuberant pieces. Design sketches and period photographs complement larger-than-life images, telling the stories of past creations and explaining the evolution of contemporary pieces. This collection is a celebration of the inimitable Cartier style, with marvelous pieces that embody and celebrate the personal experience of selecting and wearing fine jewelry.

Author Biography

Cartier is one of the world's preeminent jewelers, founded in 1847. The firm has been an official purveyor to rulers around the globe, from England to Egypt, Russia to Siam, Portugal to Serbia, and Spain to Albania. The company's extensive archive, The Cartier Collection, includes more than 1,300 pieces illustrating the changes in design styles and techniques in Cartier's creations. In recent years, works by Cartier--watches, jewelry, and other accessories--have been featured in major retrospectives at internationally renowned museums from Moscow to Tokyo and Mexico to Milan, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.