Once upon a time a long long time ago–in the year of 1847 there
lived a jeweler in the land of gay Paree who established a firm and
aspired to make jewelry fit for a queen. His name was Louis Franois
Cartier. And he had a son named Alfred who had among his clientele
King Edward VI of England and King Alsonso XIII of Spain and Czar
Nicholas II of Russia and many more.
And then one day Alfred went to the great jeweler’s hall in the
heavens and left behind his sons who began making jewelry which was
too exotic for royalty but fit perfectly into the heady atmosphere of
the audacious millionaires of the day. They had among their customers
people like Daisy Fellowes… the Singer Sewing Machine heiress as
well as the Duchess of Windsor.
For some time now–since 1915 in fact–one of the sleekest animals
of the jungle had begun prowling its way around the Cartier design
studio. It was the Panther. It could be found on a lapel watch
brooch. It lounged lazily in a 1920’s advertisement. And then it had
litters… and an explosion of bejeweled panthers and other cats
began draping themselves over rings and pins and bangles and
brooches. And suddenly… the panther became known as the Cartier
Mascot.
The first of this new litter preened and glared at the world atop a
152 carat cabochon sapphire brooch. It had square sapphire spots and
canary yellow diamond eyes. It was awesome. It was fierce. Who would
dare glare back at it. None… except perhaps for the Duchess of
Windsor who wore our ferocious feline pinned to her coat in 1967 as
she went to an event at the Marlborough House in London.
Cartier’s jewelry had become some of the most celebrated of the 20th
century. But here’s the conundrum that faces much of the hoi-polloi
of today: How does one who is not part of that world get to see
pieces such as the one I just described. How do we… the deprived…
the underprivileged… those of us not born to royalty… those of us
who have not yet won our lottery tickets … those of us not born to
the Huttons or the Hearsts or the Gettys or the Trumps… those of us
without the acumen or luck or correct placement on this earth… how
do we get to see this stuff?
Ah yes… well… believe it or not… I have the answer. A long
long time ago a jeweler in the ancient world by the name of Tylerus
Adamus–I’ve mentioned his name before so some of you may be familiar
with him–set up a genetic pool that would one day ensure that one of
his distant relatives (that would be moi folks) would be gifted with
the task of passing this info on to others.
He would not know why he was doing it… he would not know that it
was pre- destined. All he would know was that some mystical urge
would overwhelm his senses every Friday… and he would pass this
precious knonwledge on to others. So it was written… and so it was
done.
So… ya wanna see a panther squatting on a 152 carat sapphire orb?
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at http://www.tyler-adam.com where you
will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that
says Current Tidbits… and you will see represented on our pages an
image of a Cartier Panther atop a cabochon sapphire… value not
given.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark