Preservation & Perseverance: Cartier Honors Artistic Crafts Through its Maison des Métiers d’Art

If there’s one part of watchmaking that’s particularly near and dear to my heart, it’s artistic craft. As a journalist in this space for over a decade, I’ve had the immense privilege of experiencing many of these modalities directly from the mouths and hands of artisans working tirelessly to not only execute their crafts but also pass them on and keep them alive.

Through these workshops and teachings, I not only deepened my knowledge about the watches I write about every day in and day out, but I also discovered my own artistic talents and passions and have gone on to pursue further training in both enameling and metalwork.

My personal journey is a small reflection of what Cartier is achieving with its Maison des Métiers d’Art, an organization founded in 2014 to share, preserve, and innovate this body of rare artistic expertise that’s threatened with extinction.

In 2011, Cartier acquired the farm located right next to the brand’s Watchmaking Manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds with the ambition of developing a hub for creative innovation. The brand tapped a skilled architect as well as a renovation specialist to transform the old farmhouse into a functional facility bathed in light (which is the most essential tool for watchmaking and jewelry artisans).
 

Three years later, the Maison des Métiers d’Art was born, bringing together Cartier’s more than 160 years of jewelry and watchmaking expertise. More than that, it stands as a monument to the brand’s commitment to artistic crafts, both in upholding their historic traditions and in propelling them forward into the future.
 

These beautiful art forms – such as enameling, granulation, filigree, and marquetry – have rarely been documented in written form. That is because these crafts are typically passed down from master to apprentice through experience and, most often, orally. As a result of this, these art forms run the risk of dying out over time. Needless to say, sharing is a top priority for the Maison des Métiers d’Art.
 

This is also why the Maison works in partnership with various training schools in France and Switzerland focusing on gem-setting as well as jewelry and watchmaking.

Of course, 2024 marks the monumental tenth anniversary of this amazing artistic craft facility. To date, the Maison des Métiers d’Art has seen the development and production of many prestigious watches based on a combination of artistic crafts honed from both jewelry and watchmaking expertise at the hands of roughly 50 craftspeople. Together, their combined talent has led to more than thirty patents.
 

In addition to honing and perpetuating traditional crafts like enameling, granulation, filigree, and marquetry, the Maison des Métiers d’Art contains a research office where a team of engineers, experts, and technicians use technology around alternative modalities – from micro-fluidics to mechanics and magnetism – alongside more recent innovations such as 3D printing on gold or lasers.
 

With this combination of tradition and innovation, the sky is truly the limit for Cartier. To learn more about the Maison des Métiers d’Art, visit Cartier’s website.

(Images © Cartier)