Jeanne Toussaint (1887–1976) was born in Charleroi, Belgium, and joined Cartier Paris in 1918, initially in the accessories department. In 1925 she was promoted to head of the department making small luxury objects: cigarette cases, lighters, letter openers, fountain pens. In 1933, Louis Cartier promoted her to the high jewellery department, a move that was controversial within the firm, particularly for Charles Jacqueau, who had been the principal designer for over two decades.
She did not design jewels herself. Her role was to commission the work of a circle of designers that included Georges Rémy, Lucien Lachassagne, and in particular Pierre Lemarchand, who was responsible for the sculptural form taken by the animal jewels of the 1940s and 50s. 'She embraced the modern sensibilities of the 1940s and 1950s and introduced muscular creatures, exotic naturalism, and colour to the Cartier jewels,' notes jewellery specialist Sheila Smithie. 'She got craftsmen to do things they feared were impossible.'
The motif most associated with her is the panther. Her nickname was Pan Pan, the name dating from a trip to Africa in 1913 with Pierre de Quinsonas, an aristocrat she had known since youth; he used it again in his letters to her during the First World War. She was an early adopter of the leopard skin coat and owned a panther vanity case. She shared a close relationship with the Duchess of Windsor, who was a committed collector of the panther jewels; it was through this connection that the pieces became as prominent as they did. Whether the panther motif originated with Toussaint, or was one of several currents she helped direct, is not something the record settles cleanly. Jean-Jacques Cartier considered Lemarchand the person most deserving of credit for the post-war animal jewels. The Cartier Panther page sets out what can be established about that history.
Louis Cartier used to say that Jeanne had what he could never have: the eye of a woman. Her professional and personal life were long intertwined with his. He died in 1942; she remained at the firm for decades after, with Pierre Cartier persuading her to stay on when she intended to retire in 1955. She married Pierre Hély d'Oissel in 1954 and left the firm in the years that followed.
In June 2018, a lot of her personal archive was sold at Haynault Ventes Publiques in Woluwé-Saint-Pierre, Brussels. It included a letter from Louis Cartier formally appointing her to the artistic direction of the house, Cecil Beaton photographs, greeting cards from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, personal documents including her birth certificate and passport, wedding papers, and a group of early letters from Pierre de Quinsonas, the source of the Pan Pan nickname.
She died in Paris in 1976.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 8 (“Diamonds and Depression: The 1930s”) and ch. 10 (“Cousins in Austerity, 1945–1956”)
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007), pp. 9, 175 et al.
- Wikipedia: Jeanne Toussaint
