In the process, the Cartier family improved its own social standing in the merchant class, arranging marriages among other prominent jewelry and fashion houses. (The Faberges, Van Cleefs and Arpels were all family friends.) By its third generation, Cartier had established its three “temples” in Paris, New York and London, and were designated as “King of Jewelers and Jeweler of Kings” by their regular customer Edward VII.

Discretion was paramount, as was appropriate for a jeweler to the elite — and, later, the stars. Cartier managed the tricky balancing act of maintaining its clientele’s privacy while still capitalizing on its influential patronage. They did careful research on their customers (paying close attention to the vicissitudes of society marriages), noting individual tastes and earning trust in return. Brickell’s grandfather Jean-Jacques Cartier recalls:“Instead of there just being a client card for the man who was buying the jewels, there would be separate cards for the recipients, too. The idea was that the salesman would avoid slip-ups that way.” Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Maria Callas shared an affinity for Cartier; at the height of its prestige, the jewelry worked with everyone from the Maharaja to Jean Cocteau to the Academie Française.

The pieces themselves became icons in their own right: the sleek Tank watch became a discreet marker of social status;” the whimsical semiprecious brooches lent visibility by Wallis Simpson; the pink diamonds worn by a young Queen Elizabeth. Cartier began primarily as a supplier to larger jewelers but — largely due to the legendary artistic director Jeanne Toussaint — its imaginative aesthetic was distinctive by the 20th century. Part of the book’s fun is watching the firm adapt to changing tastes — for instance, resetting Imperial Russian jewels to suit the Art Deco tastes of the 1920s, or the bandeaux Cartier created to complement newly shingled hair. But this is also a story of the invention of the modern luxury canon.