Cartier: A white gold 'Menotte' bangle
£5,796
Auction: 29 April 2025 from 14:00 BST
Description
The 18 carat white gold tapered bangle, hinged at the base and connected centrally by a pair of raised flathead screwheads, signed Cartier, maker's mark, numbered, European convention mark, Swiss assay mark, inner diameter 6.6cm
Accompanied by a Cartier box, case and screwdriver as well as a Cartier certificate of authenticity dated 2004.
Footnote
The "Menotte" collection is one of Cartier’s more limited collections. Menotte is the French word for handcuff, referencing the locking mechanism securing the bangle. Research suggests that this collection was an extrapolation on an original gem-set design created by Jeanne Toussaint for Cartier Paris in 1939. See Fornas, Bernard and Gagarina, Elena (eds) Cartier; Innovation Through the 20th Century, Paris, 2007, page 222.
The contemporary collection was released in 2003, initially as just a bracelet, but the collection expanded shortly thereafter.
It has been suggested that Aldo Cipullo’s 1970 Love bangle (See lots 33, 34 and 35) was an homage to the original Menotte design. However, as the versions made in the very late 1930s were heavily gem-set and devoid of the working screw mechanism, both features so intrinsic to the later Love bangle, this attribution seems doubtful. It would have also been unlikely that Cipullo would have had access to the French archives. Cipullo was employed by Cartier in New York , at that time the branches were all under separate ownership. The more likely archival inspiration integrated into both the contemporary Menotte and the Love bangle's designs was the screwheads that decorated the original Santos watch’s bezel, designed by Louis Cartier in 1904.