Sande Monteau agrees with Jacqueline Karachi “IT IS THE most beautiful natural pearl you can find,” “It is a royal pearl.”
Cartier’s prestige creative director sounds as much in awe of this jewel of nature as she must have been in 2012 when her design team began working toward this year’s Biennale des Antiquaires’ “Royal” collection.
“For us, it is perfection,” she adds.
For millennia, the tiara has been a symbol of high status: power, royalty, wealth, and the ruling elite. Since pre-Egyptian times, a tiara has set the wearer—man or woman—apart, as well as being used to showcase some of the biggest, purest and finest stones known to man.
Sande says that it is fitting, then, that the story of the pearl at the center of this diamond-and-pearl masterpiece, the Royal Tiara, begins with royalty—Mary, Queen consort of the United Kingdom from 1910 until 1936. The pearl probably came from the Persian Gulf, from an oyster that could have been as old as 20 years, and, when mounted in pendant form, became part of the queen’s collection. She then passed it on to her daughter, Princess Mary.
When the pearl came on to the market and the dealer approached Cartier’s director of prestige stone purchasing, who needs to remain nameless, she says she was “crazy.”
“It was a surprise that someone [would] bring me that,” she says. “But they only came to Cartier.” As a colored stone specialist she is passionate about the gems that come through her hands, but as she says: “The pearl is completely natural. The stones are all cut, but the pearl comes like that from nature. It’s a miracle.”
Having secured the pearl, one year later, the stone buyer had the opportunity to buy a pair of pearls to add to the ensemble as earrings. “It is like a love story,” she says emotionally.
The pearl itself weighs 166.18 grains (1 pearl grain is equal to ¼ of a carat, or 50 mg), and its dimensions are officially stated as 21.82 mm by 17.66 mm by 16.44 mm. It is a perfect drop shape. It is mounted, with cushion-shaped and brilliant-cut diamonds and more than 30 natural pearls, on platinum. And it can be worn as both a necklace and tiara (a feature of many of the most extravagant tiaras), and with its original 5.03-carat cushion-shaped diamond, as a pendant. “How it morphs?” says Ms. Karachi, “I don’t say it is easy, but you can do it.”
The tiara is the most expensive piece of the whole Biennale collection (price on application only), and, at the time of writing, remains for sale.
The challenge of designing a piece that gave due reverence to the pearl was given to a single designer: “If you want a piece to have a lot of emotion, a lot of power, only one person can [do it],” says Ms. Karachi. And it was her most senior designer who took on the task. (Cartier’s designers remain anonymous and cannot be named.) But why the need for such experienced hands? “The younger won’t see the opportunity,” says Ms. Karachi. “It’s a work of humility, and it was important to fit into the Cartier collection, its grammar—it’s like a language that you learn to speak fluently.”
The piece reflects much of Cartier’s philosophy of how the company works in the 21st century: The stones and gems are at the heart of all the decision making—stones first, which then trigger the design process. As Xavier Gargat, Cartier’s director of high jewelry workshops, explains through a translator: “Creativity starts upstream, when we start buying the precious stones…. The precious stones aren’t bought for the financial value but for their aesthetic value and beauty. The designers look at these stones, they draw inspiration from them and they’ll work up their design, after which it is the jeweler who will transform this two-dimensional piece into your exceptional product.”
It was the size and fineness of the stones they found that gave the name to this year’s collection. “Generally, we have an idea at the beginning,” says Ms. Karachi. This time, the name came at the end. “For us the stone is queen,” she says.
And the queen of them all is the pearl at the center of the tiara. “The color of the pearl is so exceptional, so feminine—the shape, the color,” says Ms. Karachi. “Perfection works in both cases.”
