Cartier

Baignoire

The Baignoire grew out of Cartier's early experiments with the oval, a shape the house returns to whenever it wants to break with the round. Its gold case widens along a single axis, the bathtub curve that gave the model its name and lets it sit like a piece of jewellery rather than an instrument. Roman numerals and slim steel-blue hands keep the dial in the classical Cartier register. Collectors value the Baignoire as Cartier's mastery of form in its most restrained register, a watch understood first by the eye.