Cartier 'Cylinder' Bracelet Watch 1943

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to see at the Capucines Boutique of Cartier a very unusual yellow gold watch. It is a Lady's watch from the 40s (circa 1943) and designed as a buckle.

The main "case" if I can use this word here is composed of a tapering cylindrical case with lateral scroll-work (it looks a bit like a whistle).

The square satin-finished gold dial is signed Cartier and features dot hour markers and applied dot gold markers at each quarter except on top of the dial.

The "whistle shape" of the case body:

As you can see it on this picture, the crown is located below the dial, at 6 o'clock. Due to its original location, it is a notched gold crown in order to make its handling easier.

The two ends of the watch: the main end is dedicated to the time display while the other end gathers a channel-set calibré-cut sapphire line detail, a flexible double snake link bracelet (its length is around 18,50 cm) and an integrated clasp which allows to close the watch:

Here is the watch on a lady's wrist. The time remains very legible, you just have to slightly turn a bit the wrist to make the dial visible. The sapphires nicely decorate the clasp. The piece uses 10 sapphires estimated at around 3 carats (7 on the main case, 3 on the clasp).

The watch is powered by the handwind movement Fontainemelon FHF 59-21 which is a small baguette caliber (rectangular shape with cut corners).

I was under the charm of this very nice watch with from my own perspective a kind of Art-Déco style even if it was created in the 40s.

This "Cylinder" Bracelet watch was restaured and is now available for sale. So I hope to see some other examples of vintage pieces restaured and back to the boutique in the future!

Thanks a lot to the Cartier staff for this nice surprise!

Fx


This message has been edited by foversta on 2015-04-06 02:44:28 This message has been edited by MTF on 2015-04-06 07:49:05