Along with Rolex and Breitling, the name Cartier is synonymous with first class, luxury watches. In fact it was Cartier that made the first wristwatch in 1904. But the firm of Cartier was and remains first and foremost a jewellery making business.

As jewellers the Cartier dynasty began in the middle of the 18th century, when Louis Francois Cartier took up the trade of goldsmith. His son, also called Louis Francois, followed the same trade, working at first for Adolphe Picard, the owner of a small workshop in Rue Montorgeuil, Paris. The second Louis quickly became one of the most respected members of his profession and when Picard died in 1847 Louis took over the business and gave it his own name.

In 1874 Louis retired and passed the business on to his son Alfred. Twenty-four years later the business moved to 13 Rue de la Paix, where it remains to this day. Alfred's three sons Louis, Pierre and Jacques entered the business and the Cartier empire began to expand into a worldwide concern. A London branch was opened at 4 Burlington St in 1902, followed seven years later by a branch in New York.

Cartier was granted a royal warrant by King Edward VII in 1904, two years after the firm had filled an order for 27 tiaras for the occasion of his coronation.

The start of Cartier's brilliant association with timepieces happened in the same year after Louis Cartier's friend Alberto Santos Dumont, a pioneer aviator, complained that because he needed both hands to operate the controls of his aeroplane he was unable to pull out his pocket watch and check the time. Cartier obliged by creating the first wristwatch, which he christened the Santos. The aviator wore Cartier's watch on every flight and used it to check the duration of his record-breaking 220-meter flight on November 12, 1907, which lasted a full 21 seconds.

In 1917 Cartier designed what was to become perhaps its most famous watch, the Tank Americaine, inspired by the American tanks that had just begun to appear on the battlefields of World War I. The prototype Cartier Tank Americaine was given to the US commander General Pershing, and subsequent wearers included Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli and Jackie Kennedy-Onassis.

A rather gruesome story has become attached to another famous Cartier model, the Crash watch which first appeared in 1967. The design is said to have developed after a Cartier executive working in London was killed in a car crash. The car burst into flames, melting the executive's watch - a Cartier Bagnoire Allongee - and giving it a Dali-esque appearance. Cartier bosses reportedly adopted the distorted shape of the watch as a new design which they released in honour of their late colleague.