The Domino watch was a Cartier novelty pocket watch produced from the 1930s in which the case itself carried the principal conceit. The format originated from the London factory and used black hard stone and ivory in a rectangular case, 21 by 42 millimetres, with the dial set into a field designed to evoke a domino playing piece. The case back was painted ivory carrying playing card imagery: a documented example shows a King of Hearts against a Seven of Clubs.
Case and Dial
The case is rectangular, measuring 21 by 42mm, with the long axis vertical. The front face is divided into two halves in the manner of a domino playing piece: the upper portion carries the dial with numerals, while the lower portion carries decorative pips or a complementary decorative field in the same black-and-white colour scheme. The materials are black hard stone (onyx) and ivory, creating the sharp tonal contrast that defines the domino conceit. The case back, in hand-painted ivory, carries playing card imagery: documented examples show a King of Hearts against a Seven of Clubs, or similar card motifs. The overall visual impression is of a pocket-sized art object that happens to tell the time, the decorative programme dominating the timekeeping function.
Jeanne Toussaint and Deauville
Jeanne Toussaint, Cartier's creative director and the figure most closely associated with the firm's decorative objects of the interwar period, promoted the Domino at a Cartier exhibition in Deauville in 1939. She described it as the gift of the season. One client, Madame Martinez de Hoz, ordered four simultaneously at that exhibition.
The Dame de Coeur
A related format, the Dame de Coeur, used Bakelite and painted ivory with Queen of Hearts and Nine of Clubs imagery on the case back. The choice of Bakelite, an industrial material, alongside hand-painted ivory was characteristic of Cartier's willingness in the 1930s to combine luxury materials with the new synthetic ones then entering the market.
Both the Domino and the Dame de Coeur were small enough to carry in an evening bag. They are now collected both as functioning timepieces and as Art Deco objects in their own right, sitting alongside the vanity cases, nécessaires, and purse watches that form the broader category of Cartier's decorative portable objects from this period.
Relation to the London Factory
The Domino's origin in the London factory rather than Paris is consistent with the pattern of the interwar years, during which Cartier London under Jacques Cartier developed its own design character, particularly in objects aimed at the British sporting and country house clientele. The playing card and gaming imagery of the Domino fits the milieu of Cartier London's social world in the 1930s.
Sources
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007), p. 275.
