Among the many pieces of jewelry that Cartier designed for the Maharajah of Patiala, one rare survivor—thanks to Cartier’s workshops—is a necklace of platinum, rubies, diamonds and natural pearls, made in 1931 for one of the maharajah’s wives.
In the 1920s, Sir Bhupindra Singh, Maharajah of Patiala (1891–1938), consigned thousands of gemstones to Cartier. He wanted the jeweler to design magnificent pieces that would be traditional yet set in Western fashion, in a modern Art-Deco style. Thus Cartier not only used this Indian treasure to make the maharajah’s famous bib necklace from 1925 to 1928, but in 1931 the house designers also made a set of jewelry for one of his wives, Maharanee Bakhtawar Kaur Sahiba (1892–1960). Composed of a choker of ruby cabochons, natural pearls and diamonds, a central necklace of five strands of alternating rubies and pearls, and finally a large bib necklace, the set was a perfect marriage of skillful techniques and modernity. The spectacular nature of the necklace made it a pendant to the ceremonial bib necklaces worn by maharajahs as a sign of their wealth and power.
Unfortunately, the maharanee’s necklace met the same fate as the maharajah’s, disappearing at the time of Indian independence.
In 2000 a bracelet of natural pearls and rubies came up for auction. Certain aspects of this piece led experts to believe it might have been made by Cartier, but the Maison archives had no trace of it. The bracelet was sold, only to reappear on the market a few years later. This time Cartier thought it recognized part of the maharanee’s choker. An old autochrome photograph of the entire set, found in Cartier archives, confirmed its authenticity. Cartier then decided to reproduce the choker, using its stock of old stones. In 2012, after long months of work, a highly faithful reconstruction of the original necklace was displayed at the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris, and has subsequently been exhibited at prestigious cultural institutions: the Grand Palais in Paris, for the Cartier: Style and History show (2013–2014); the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2014–2015), and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2015–2016).