Famous Clients

Reference

• Aga Khan III Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III (1877-1957), Imam of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims, moved in the same international social world as the Cartier brothers across several decades.
• Alberto Santos-Dumont Brazilian aviator and Paris socialite whose friendship with Louis Cartier led to the creation of one of the earliest purpose-made men's wristwatches.
• Barbara Hutton Barbara Hutton (1912-1979), heiress to the Woolworth fortune, was one of the most prominent American Cartier clients of the interwar period, and her jewellery collection intersects with the dispersal of European aristocratic and Russian imperial jewels.
• Calouste Gulbenkian Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), the Armenian-British oil magnate known as 'Mr Five Percent', was a major collector of decorative arts whose holdings include Cartier pieces now in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.
• Cecil Beaton Cecil Beaton, the photographer, designer, and writer, moved in the same circles as Cartier's most prominent clients. He documented the era through his lens and his memoirs, and his observations appear repeatedly in accounts of the period.
• Coco Chanel The French fashion designer moved in the same Parisian social world as the Cartiers and was a friend of Jeanne Toussaint, the creative force behind Cartier Paris in the interwar decades.
• Consuelo Vanderbilt Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877-1964), American heiress and Duchess of Marlborough, was one of the 'dollar princesses' whose arrival in European society helped sustain Cartier's London and Paris branches.
• Daisy Fellowes Society heiress and fashion figure of the 1930s and 1940s whose Cartier commissions and purchases set the tone others followed, including a wartime iris brooch that sold at auction for more than three times its estimate.
• Doris Duke American heiress and tobacco fortune heir who was among the prominent clients of Cartier New York in the interwar and postwar decades, with documented diamond pieces that later appeared at Christie's auction.
• Duke of Westminster Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, appears in the Cartier story primarily through his relationship with Coco Chanel, for whom he commissioned a personalised vanity case, and through efforts by Cartier London to maintain his business as the interwar years progressed.
• Edward, Prince of Wales Later Edward VIII and then Duke of Windsor, one of Cartier's most prominent clients from the 1910s through the 1950s, whose purchases with Wallis Simpson generated some of the firm's most publicised commissions.
• Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most visible Cartier clients of the twentieth century, her name inseparable from the Taylor-Burton Diamond and from the spectacle of high-profile gemstone ownership in postwar America.
• Elsie de Wolfe American interior designer and socialite who bought the first triple bracelet from Cartier in 1925 and remained a loyal client through the 1920s and 1930s, wearing Cartier pieces at some of the most celebrated social events of the interwar years.
• Empress Eugénie Empress consort of Napoleon III and a defining figure of the Second Empire's taste, whose departure from Paris in 1870 marked the end of the world into which Louis-François Cartier had established his workshop.
• Evalyn Walsh McLean Evalyn Walsh McLean was the American socialite who purchased the Hope Diamond from Pierre Cartier in 1911, one of the most storied gem transactions in the history of the trade.
• Felix Yusupov Prince Felix Yusupov (1887-1967), husband of Princess Irina Alexandrovna, was the Cartier family's primary client from the Yusupov line in exile, selling the Polar Star diamond to Pierre Cartier and the historic La Pellegrina pearl.
• Gaekwar and Maharani of Baroda The Gaekwar of Baroda were among the wealthiest of the Indian princely rulers, and the Baroda jewel collection, including legendary pearl assemblies and named diamonds, brought the court into sustained contact with Cartier and other major houses.
• Ganna Walska Polish opera singer and significant Cartier Paris client of the interwar decades, known for her extraordinary personal spending on jewellery and her association with Art Deco pieces including a Portique clock acquired by Robert Hocq.
• Gloria Swanson Gloria Swanson was one of the biggest stars of the silent film era and a notable Cartier client during the 1920s and 1930s, representing the growing intersection of Hollywood glamour and Parisian haute joaillerie.
• Grace Kelly American actress and Princess of Monaco whose Cartier diamond ring, a 10.47-carat emerald-cut stone given by Prince Rainier in 1956, became one of the most celebrated commissions in the firm's twentieth-century history.
• Grand Duchess Vladimir Born Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, she was one of the most celebrated collectors of her era and one of Cartier's most significant clients in the years before 1917, known as 'the grandest of all the grand duchesses.'
• Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (1875-1960), sister of Tsar Nicholas II, was a Cartier patron before the Revolution and spent four decades in British exile after it, selling jewels as her financial circumstances required.
• Indian Maharajas The Indian princely courts were among Cartier's most significant clients in the early twentieth century, bringing their own stones for remounting and commissioning major new pieces.
• Jean Cocteau Poet, filmmaker, and multi-disciplinary artist whose decades-long friendship with the Cartier family culminated in a sword he designed himself for his admission to the Académie Française.
• King Alfonso XIII of Spain King Alfonso XIII (1886-1941), who reigned until Spain's Second Republic forced him into exile in 1931, visited Cartier's Paris salon and moved in the international social world that overlapped with the firm's clientele.
• King George V King George V and Queen Mary were among the royal clients who anchored Cartier London's connection to the British Crown in the early twentieth century, a relationship formalised through royal warrants and sustained through decades of commissions.
• Lady Cunard American-born London society hostess whose charity fashion show in the late 1920s gave Jacques Cartier one of his most celebrated opportunities to showcase new jewellery ideas, and who became one of Cartier London's most active clients through the 1920s and 1930s.
• Lady Granard Beatrice Mills Forbes, Countess of Granard, was one of Cartier London's most loyal aristocratic clients through the early decades of the twentieth century, commissioning significant jewels including pieces incorporating her own extraordinary gemstones.
• Maharaja of Kapurthala Jagatjit Singh (1872-1949), the most Francophile of the Indian maharajas, maintained a decades-long relationship with Cartier that encompassed turban ornaments, necklaces, and the remounting of stones from his treasury.
• Maharaja of Nawanagar Ranjitsinhji (1872-1933), the cricketing Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, was among Cartier's most significant Indian clients and commissioned pieces that rank among the finest the firm produced for the subcontinent.
• Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh (1891-1938), Maharaja of Patiala, was one of the most extravagant of the Indian princes and one of Cartier's most significant clients, known above all for commissioning the Patiala Diamond Necklace between 1925 and 1928.
• Maisie Plant American socialite whose husband Morton F. Plant traded the family mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue plus $100 in cash to Pierre Cartier in 1917 in exchange for a 128-pearl double-strand necklace.
• Maria Callas The Greek-American soprano who moved in the postwar café society world where Cartier's clients gathered.
• María Félix The Mexican actress and film star known as 'La Doña', whose 1968 commission of an articulated diamond serpent necklace from Cartier Paris is among the house's best-known individual orders.
• Marjorie Merriweather Post One of the wealthiest women in America and among the most significant collectors of Cartier pieces in the United States across the mid-twentieth century.
• Marlene Dietrich German-American actress and international icon whose association with Cartier Paris in the 1930s formed part of the firm's deliberate courtship of Hollywood celebrity as a new kind of client.
• Morton Plant The American railroad and steamship magnate whose Fifth Avenue townhouse became the Cartier New York premises, acquired through a transaction that has become one of the firm's most retold stories.
• Mrs Greville Society hostess and major Cartier collector whose bequest to Queen Elizabeth in 1942 was described as the most significant private gift of jewels of the twentieth century.
• Nizam of Hyderabad The Nizam of Hyderabad was among the most significant Indian clients of Cartier, known for purchasing at exceptional scale and connected to the Hyderabad Necklace given as a wedding gift to Princess Elizabeth in 1947.
• Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, was among the postwar generation of royal clients who maintained Cartier London's connection to the British Crown, and she is associated with several notable pieces from the firm's mid-century work.
• Princess Marie Bonaparte Great-great-niece of Napoleon who commissioned her 1907 wedding jewels from Cartier Paris, including a diamond tiara with swappable emerald olives, worn at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II almost half a century later.
• Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent Princess Marina of Greece, who became Duchess of Kent on her marriage to Prince George in 1934, received one of Cartier London's most celebrated engagement rings of the period: a Kashmir sapphire set in platinum with baton diamonds.
• Queen Alexandra Queen Consort to Edward VII and the dominant taste in Edwardian court jewellery; her preference for pearls, diamonds, and the high choker profoundly shaped what Cartier's London clients wanted during the firm's formative years in England.
• Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II's connection to Cartier is most visible through two pieces: the Williamson Pink Diamond brooch, set by Cartier London, and the Halo Tiara, a Cartier London creation worn by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, at her 2011 wedding.
• Queen Marie of Romania Queen of Romania and granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II, who became one of Cartier's most significant royal clients in the early 1920s, receiving a 478-carat sapphire sautoir as a coronation gift from King Ferdinand.
• Queen Mary Queen Mary, consort of King George V, was a significant Cartier client and a formidable collector of tiaras and royal jewellery in the early twentieth century.
• Richard Burton Welsh actor who lost the 69.42-carat Cartier Diamond at auction in 1969, then immediately arranged to buy it directly from Cartier for Elizabeth Taylor, in one of the most publicised jewel purchases of the twentieth century.
• Sir Ernest Cassel British financier and close confidant of King Edward VII. His 1903 commission of the convertible wisteria brooches produced one of Louis Cartier's earliest documented convertible designs.
• The British Royal Family Cartier's relationship with the British royal family ran from the years around Edward VII's coronation through most of the twentieth century, underpinned by royal warrants and sustained by the London house's role as court jeweller.
• The Romanovs and Cartier The Russian imperial family and Romanov aristocracy were among Cartier's most significant early twentieth-century clients, a relationship ended abruptly by the 1917 Revolution.
• Tsar Nicholas II The last Russian emperor granted Cartier a royal warrant in 1907 and was a client of the firm through the imperial period, before the 1917 Revolution dispersed the Romanov collections across the European market.
• Wallis Simpson The Duchess of Windsor and her husband the Duke of Windsor were among the most celebrated Cartier clients of the mid-twentieth century, their collection spanning decades of work from the London and Paris branches.