English Art Works Ltd was the manufacturing and design workshop behind the jewellery and objets produced by Cartier's London operation. While Cartier Paris was the creative and commercial centre of the firm, the London branch developed its own distinctive aesthetic and technical identity through its workshop, and pieces made there are among the most characterful and sought-after in the Cartier canon.
The London workshop operated from the upper floors of 175 New Bond Street, directly above the Cartier retail space, and employed its own craftsmen, designers, and setters. Its output (bird brooches, enamel pieces, distinctive jewellery with an English sensibility) reflected the tastes of a British clientele and the creative vision of the designers working there, including later figures who gave Cartier London a particularly strong mid-century identity.
Cartier London & English Art Works: The Room Where It Happened provides a detailed account of the workshop, including documentary evidence of the space where the pieces were made. Vintage Cartier London Birds illustrates some of the distinctive bird brooches that became one of the London workshop's signature output. That Prince Philip visited English Art Works is documented, giving a sense of the workshop's prestige.
British-made pieces carry London assay office marks with date letters that allow precise dating. Pieces made in Paris and sold through London carry different import marks. These hallmarks are what allow specialists to place individual pieces within the London or Paris branch's output, and to understand the creative context in which they were made.
The Cartier London Halo Tiara is one of the most famous pieces made by English Art Works, representing the independent creative confidence that the London workshop developed over the course of the twentieth century. Watch cases and straps for Cartier London timepieces were handled separately by Wright & Davies Ltd, the Clerkenwell workshop responsible for the metal components of watches including the Cartier Crash.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 11 (“The End of an Era, 1957–1974”)
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007), pp. 23, 121 et al.
