09/12/2026
Cartier New York special order, completed October 1925. Emeralds, pearls and diamonds in platinum. A long single strand pearl chain with a carved emerald leaf clasp and a short section of collet-set diamonds and emerald beads at the base. The detachable pendant centers on a polygonal carved emerald of 86.71 carats, carved with a Hindu scene of Shiva and Parvati, and hangs a pearl tassel with emerald beads, pear drop emeralds, and a large carved pear drop emerald of 27.50 carats at the base. The pendant loop, set with a baguette diamond, is engraved CARTIER. Catalogued as no. 101 in Judy Rudoe’s Cartier 1900-1939 (British Museum Press, 1997, p. 180); previously in Cartier’s Collection.
The central emerald is a rare example of figurative Hindu carving — quite unlike the standard Mughal floral engraving Cartier typically used in its Indian-inspired stock pieces. It belonged to the client: a reused Indian stone of the eighteenth or nineteenth century, drilled at the top with a bow-drill for suspension. Shiva is shown with the river Ganges flowing through his hair — the myth of his catching the river as it fell from heaven — and the two deities sit on a tigerskin, the seat of ascetics, its paws to either side and tail below, a rosary of sacred beads around Shiva’s neck. The design is deeply Indian in inspiration, though the oversized tassel — more typical of an Indian head ornament — is pure Cartier reinterpretation.
In 1974 the sautoir was chosen for the film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, worn by Lois Chiles as Jordan Baker — a fitting coincidence, as the novel was published in 1925, the very year the jewel was made.
Literature: Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary (1984), col. pl. 30. Exhibitions: New York 1976, cat. 4; Los Angeles 1982, cat. 80; Tokyo 1995, cat. 142.
