Cartier: A 'Trinity' bangle
£4,032
Auction: 29 April 2025 from 14:00 BST
Description
Designed as three interconnecting tri-coloured gold bands, signed Cartier, maker's mark, numbered, European convention mark, Swiss assay mark, inner diameter 6.0cm
Accompanied by a Cartier case.
Footnote
Louis Cartier was a gentleman who curated an electric and fascinating group of friends and counted amongst his close circle in Paris the famed aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, Jeanne Toussaint and the poet Jean Cocteau.
As the story goes, one evening in the early 1920s, Cocteau described dreaming of the rings of Saturn to Louis Cartier. He asked Louis to transform the magic of those celestial rings into a small ring for his little finger.
The engineering behind perfecting the smooth rolling motion of three bands gliding over each other, without catching the wearer’s skin or becoming rigid required an engineering masterstroke, one which Cartier’s workshop on the Rue de la Paix was by now well used to fulfilling.
In 1924 Louis presented Cocteau with a small ring of three interconnecting bands, devoid of any further decoration. Cocteau declared Louis was “a subtle magician who captures fragments of the moon on a thread of the sun”. Cocteau would go on to wear that ring for decades to come, making him the perfect ambassador of what would become one of the most sought-after rings for both men and women.
Initially platinum was used for one of the bands but it was later replaced by white gold. The design was known at the time as bague trois ors (triple gold ring) or a bague trois anneaux (triple-ringed ring). Just the following year, the design was enlarged into a bangle. The first bangle was purchased in 1925 by Elsie de Wolfe, a famed American interior designer.
In 1925 American Vogue ran editorial on Cartier's new jewellery including an image of the model Luella Kendall Lee wearing two stacked Trinity bracelets and a ring. Lee would go on to marry one of Cartier New York's top sales executives, Jules Glaenzer. Vogue described them as “amazingly chic” and also “very moderate in price”. Highlighting the conscious choice to begin to curate a wider client base.
Fans of the Trinity collection include amongst others King Charles III, Gary Cooper, Princess Diana, Grace Kelly and King Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, who wore two stacked upon his little finger.