Cartier Ronde Solo 36mm Stainless Steel

Louis-François Cartier took over his master's Paris workshop in 1847, but the house became what it is under his grandson Louis, who understood that a watch could be an object of design rather than an instrument of engineering.

Cartier's contribution to horology is shape. Where Swiss houses refined the round case, Cartier abandoned it. The Santos of 1904, made for the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont so he could read the time without releasing the controls of his aircraft, is among the earliest purpose-built men's wristwatches. The Tonneau, Tortue, Tank, Baignoire, Crash, and Pebble followed, and the Tank of 1917 — inspired, the house says, by the tracks of a Renault tank viewed from above — remains one of the few watch designs recognisable in silhouette alone.

The early complications were equally distinctive: the mystery clocks, built with Maurice Coüet from 1912, appear to have hands floating in empty crystal.

Cartier spent decades known primarily as a jeweller with a watch line, then rebuilt serious watchmaking credibility through the Fine Watchmaking collection from 2008, producing in-house skeletons, astronomical complications, and the shaped movements its cases demand.

The three Paris, London, and New York branches were reunited under single ownership in the 1970s, and the house has been part of Richemont since the group's formation — indeed Cartier is its founding pillar.