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Until the end of the 19th century, Cartier was primarily a retailer of jewelry and objects produced by outside manufacturers. When Cartier's son Alfred took over in 1874, the firm gradually began repairing and improving jewelry, and then designing and manufacturing their own original pieces in the late 1800s. In 1899, the move to 13 Rue de la Paix situated the business in the heart of the important jewelry and couturier quarter of Paris.

Encouraged by King Edward VII, Cartier opened a branch in London in 1902 managed by Alfred's son Jacques. A royal commission was granted in 1904, followed quickly by commissions from Spain, Portugal, Russia, Siam, and Greece. These royal commissions helped to solidify Cartier's reputation among the wealthy and famous the world over.

To better deal with American millionaires, who from the beginning formed a large part of Cartier's clientele, a New York branch was opened in 1909 by Alfred's other son, Pierre. Until World War I, Cartier maintained close relations with clients in Russia, and the princes and maharajas of India sought Cartier to design and mount their jewels. Jewelry and accessories were also made as stock items for the stores or were commissioned by individuals.

Until the 1960s, the Paris, London, and New York branches were part of a single firm but operated independently, collaborating whenever necessary. In 1962, the New York branch was sold, followed by the Paris branch in 1965, thus ending the unity. The firm was reunited and reorganized in 1979 as Cartier Monde, and today shops and boutiques can be found in cities around the world.

With each of the branches headed by a Cartier brother, the first four decades of the 20th century were a time of originality in design and technique in which a distinctive Cartier aesthetic emerged. Most of the pieces in this exhibition date to this period and reflect in part the range of materials and decorative techniques employed by Cartier.

The coronation in England of Edward VII in 1902 brought so many commissions to Cartier that Pierre, along with Gaston Worth of the French fashion house called the House of Worth, established a branch in London that same year. Worth and Cartier often worked together to the advantage of their prosperous client base, as their stores were located near each other in Paris. They often displayed each other's wares in their windows, and occasionally their designers worked together to incorporate jewelry in clothing designs. By 1906 Pierre's brother Jacques took over the London branch.

Still looking to expand their business, Pierre Cartier traveled to Russia in 1904-1905. The Paris and London shops served several Russian aristocrats such as Grand Duke Alexis, Grand Duchess Vladimir, and Empress Marie Feodorovna. Cartier set up a temporary branch in St. Petersburg in 1908 and became a major rival of Fabergé before closing in 1914 at the outbreak of war. The connections that the firm forged during its time in Russia proved beneficial during the following years as many royal refugees sold their jewels to Cartier for resale, often to American consumers.

As a result of the increasing number of American clients, Pierre Cartier opened a New York branch in 1909 in a building at 712 Fifth Avenue. He offered jewelry with aristocratic pedigree, often reset to suit the latest fashions. In 1917 the company moved to banker Morton Plant's mansion at 653 Fifth Avenue. Cartier traded a double-strand pearl necklace, carved by Mrs. Plant and then valued at $1,000,000, for the building, which was designed by architect Welles Bosworth. The new store featured several showrooms including the Pearl room, the Silver room, the Wedgewood room with its objects d'art, and the Blue room where they presented the most impressive and expensive jewels. Pierre Cartier married an American, Elma Rumsey, in 1909; they had one daughter.

Originally, all of the jewelry and related products were made in France and sent to the American branch. By the 1920s, however, the New York store established American Art Works, a workshop of up to seventy jewelers and goldsmiths, most from France. In 1941 the workshop closed and Cartier contracted out their work with the American firm of Wors & Pujol.

During the time Pierre Cartier presided at the New York store, he witnessed changes in jewelry fashions, while his company also helped start new trends. Cartier began the twentieth century selling stomachers, dog-collar necklaces, and epaulettes--items well out of style by the 1920s. The company excelled at modern and Art Deco designs in jewelry, clocks, and watches. A Cartier salesman once credited Pierre Cartier for inventing the idea of the clip brooch in the 1930s. Inspired by a clothespin, Cartier adapted the spring mechanism to brooches and ear clips. The opening of international markets affected Cartier's style: the firm began to create new jewelry inspired by designs from India, Japan, China, Russia, and Egypt. Cartier's refined taste extended to its publicity efforts. Advertisements were run in high-end magazines, and product placements were worked into fashion spreads for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. But one of the most successful selling techniques was the loaning of jewelry to actresses and socialites, who wore the pieces to important events and often became too attached to the jewelry to return it.

Cartier's American elite clientele included the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Astors, Barbara Hutton, and Marjorie Merriweather Post. Pierre Cartier offered his customers the glamour and allure of unusual and historical pieces such as the marriage crown of the Romanov family and the silver service Napoleon ordered on his return from Elba. Perhaps the most famous of Pierre Cartier's transactions was the sale of the Hope Diamond to Evalyn Walsh McLean, who, wealthy in her own right, had married an heir to the company that published the Washington Post. In 1908 McLean bought from Cartier the Star of the East, a diamond of more than 90 carats, for $120,000. Two years later, Pierre Cartier and McLean were both in Paris, and he showed her the Hope Diamond, a blue diamond of just over forty-five carats. Pierre Cartier's sales pitch included a rich history of the stone passing through several generations of French royalty and carrying with it a legendary curse. Cartier and McLean returned to the United States without a sale; but soon thereafter he loaned the stone to McLean, and she became smitten. She bought the gem for $180,000. Cartier had the diamond set so it could be worn as a brooch or a pendant, and it became McLean's signature piece of jewelry. The diamond is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.

In addition to his work for the company, Pierre Cartier served on the boards of Alliance Française in New York and the French Chamber of Commerce in the United States. In 1945, following the death of his two brothers, he moved to Paris to become president of Cartier International. He retired to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1947. Other members of the Cartier family ran the company until the branches were sold to different syndicates in the 1960s and 1970s.

Pierre Cartier helped turn his family's company into a truly international firm, small enough to maintain personal service yet large enough to accommodate the changing clientele's needs over the course of the twentieth century. In addition to forging ties with England and Russia, his greatest contribution to the company was opening and running the New York branch during times of unprecedented wealth in America. Although the fashions changed, Cartier strove to be a constant arbiter of taste while selling some of the most outstanding gems in the world.