Pair of Coral and Diamond Leaf Ear Clips by Cartier, Paris, circa 1955

Biography

Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier. His three grandsons, Louis, Pierre, and Jacques, built the house into a famous international jewelry empire serving royalty, Hollywood stars, and socialites. Cartier has created some of the most important jewelry and objects of art of the twentieth century with many iconic designs such as mystery clocks, Tutti Frutti jewelry and the Panthère line. In 1983, The Cartier Collection was established with the objective of acquiring important pieces that trace the firm's artistic evolution. Today, Cartier has 200 stores in 125 countries.

Significance

Leaves and flowers are, perhaps, the oldest jewelry form. It is easy to imagine the earliest adornment came from twisting vines and flowers into a wearable form long before metalsmithing and lapidary existed. Foliate forms are threaded throughout the record of wearable art. Lotus flowers were integral to Egyptian jewelry, representing the cycle of life and death, as all plants do. Plants lend themselves to a myriad of wonderful decorative forms.

Delicate floral jewelry set with diamonds was the predominant form throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Enormous brooch sets set of diamonds and flowers were sought after by members of court. The Garland Style took hold around 1900 when romantic foliate vines abounded in the decorative arts. Jewelry forms change quickly during this era. In the Art Deco period of the 1920s, the vines and festoons were stripped back as designers focused on abstraction and essential geometric forms.  

In the 1950s, Hollywood glamour reigned supreme and jewelry remained bold and oversized. Building on the abstraction of the Art Deco era, there was a return to figurative jewelry, but it was not the delicate romantic jewelry of earlier eras. The jewelry of the 1950s was bold, colorful and playful, like these Cartier coral leaf earrings. Meant to be seen, these earrings have a curvaceous form, accented with lines of diamonds. The ear clips are dimensional, much more than leaves in nature, and the incised lines mimicking veins follow the curve of the carved coral. This is a glamorous pair of earrings, meant to be seen across the crowded room of a party or on a movie screen. These earrings were created at a time when Cartier was recognized for their chic foliate designs owned by the most glamorous women in the world, including Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Daisy Fellowes. This iconic pair of ear clips would be an important and wearable addition to any collection.