The firm of Cartier, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 1997, was by the end of the 19th century the major supplier of jewellery to the European aristocracy and their American counterparts. During the next four decades Cartier's work was marked by exceptional quality of design and execution. This catalogue, published to accompany a major exhibition at the British Museum, London, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, provides an insight into Cartier and includes items associated with the great figures who were its clients. The book illustrates and describes 227 items of jewllery and decorative accessories and also reproduces 70 highly finished designs, including many objects shown at the great international exhibition of Arts Decoratifs held in Paris in 1925. Contemporary archive photographs and some newly discovered plaster casts recording major pieces which no longer survive are also included.