The Tank Chinoise was introduced in 1922, three years after the original Cartier Tank had established its rectangular case form. Where the standard Tank is defined by its clean parallel brancards (the vertical side rails flanking the dial), the Chinoise variant adds a system of horizontal bars crossing those brancards at intervals, creating a bracketed structure that reads as a distinct visual departure from the parent design.
Case Design and Inspiration
The horizontal crossbars of the Tank Chinoise were intended to evoke the layered horizontal beams of Chinese temple portico architecture, a visual reference that places the watch within Cartier's broader Art Deco engagement with East Asian aesthetics. During the 1920s, Cartier's designers drew on sources from across Asia: Persian and Islamic geometry, Indian decorative vocabulary, and the architectural and decorative forms of China and Japan all appear in objects from this period, including vanity cases, cigarette boxes, clocks, and watches.
The cases produced in the 1920s are typically in platinum or yellow gold. The dial is standard for the Tank form of the period: Roman numerals, blue steel hands, and a cabochon crown. The horizontal bars sit over the brancards without enclosing the movement, functioning as purely decorative architectural elements applied to the outer case structure.
Rarity and Auction Record
The Tank Chinoise from the original 1920s and 1930s production is among the rarest of all Tank variants. The small total output reflects both the specialised nature of the design and the limited production runs typical of Cartier's more experimental case forms during that period. Vintage examples in platinum from the interwar years are particularly scarce: Christie's described a platinum Tank Chinoise sold in November 2022 as one of approximately ten such pieces known to have been publicly offered. Auction appearances tend to attract significant attention from specialist collectors, partly because of the rarity and partly because the Chinoise's crossbar structure is immediately distinctive and well-documented in the scholarly literature on Cartier watches.
The Tank Chinoise should not be confused with other Cartier watches carrying chinoiserie decoration applied to the dial or case surface: the defining feature of the Chinoise variant is specifically the structural horizontal bar system over the brancards, not decorative Chinese motifs in enamel or engraving.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019)
