CARTIER - Lot 154

CARTIER Small Tank Rectangle. Circa 1926 Rare ladies' Tank model in platinum and 750‰ white gold. White dial, Roman numerals, leaf hands. Later Cartier movement, cal 845 circa 1969. N°1927081 Freq 21600 vib/h. Platinum "5-row laminated fabric" bracelet Rose gold folding clasp N°1896. Three additional links attached. Two-body case, crystal glass inside. Cabochon sapphire crown. Works, good condition. Back numbered 17774. Gross weight: 43.5 g - Dim 14 x 19 mm excluding handles. Link weight 5 g. Please note: The original movement was replaced by a newer model around 1969 in the workshops of Cartier. An equivalent model is shown on page 191 in the book "Cartier la montre Tank" by Franco Cologni. The Tank, a lost ball While the First World War shook Europe to its core, it also unexpectedly nourished certain creative imaginations. Against this backdrop of turmoil, we might well ask: what were the benchmarks that guided designers, particularly in the applied arts of jewelry? It was at the height of the Industrial Revolution, at a time when machines were redrawing urban and mental landscapes, that mechanical aesthetics entered the language of artists. From Gustave Eiffel to Fernand Léger, via the symbolic cogs of Chaplin's "Modern Times", the fascination with modern engineering became universal. Industrial forms - screws, pistons, gears - became the codes of a new aesthetic in an uncertain climate. Cartier took an unexpected turn in this direction. In 1917, Louis Cartier designed a watch inspired by the profile of the Renault FT tank: La Tank, to ward off fate and deflect negative spirits. Perhaps this was the ambition of the brand in the red case. More often a feminine than a masculine icon, the Tank seduced 20th-century elegance: Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Catherine Deneuve and Yves Saint Laurent all made it an accessory of distinction. One of the most famous anecdotes is that of actor Rudolf Valentino, sex symbol of silent cinema, who refused to remove his Tank during the filming of "Son of the Sheik" (1926), introducing an anachronism that posterity has fondly remembered. Unashamedly, the Cartier Tank was born from the echo of a war machine, and not to be outdone, proud of its audacity, Cartier soon proposed: the Tank with "Anses Obus". A century later, the Tank remains. No longer an evocation of war, but an enduring manifesto of style. A stray bullet in the chaos, perhaps, but one that struck right at the heart.