An exhaustive survey of the global brand’s nearly two centuries of output arrives at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
This spring, jewelry lovers visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum in London may have difficulty choosing between the institution’s encyclopedic collection of ornaments and the stunning Cartier exhibition, opening to the public April 12, which features more than 350 objects, including extraordinary and rarely seen examples from the jewelry firm’s substantial archival collection; Charles III’s Royal Collection and those of aristocratic, celebrity, and private figures; and the museum’s own impressive holdings. The answer to exactly how Cartier rose from its origins as a modest, family-run Parisian operation founded by Louis-François Cartier in 1847 to the pinnacle of the jewelry field, with branches in Paris, London, and New York, and an enviable client list drawn from around the world, is found in the exhibition’s three thematic sections. These focus on the firm’s pursuit of original designs, its emphasis on superior craftsmanship and materials, and, lastly, the strategies employed to attract world-class patrons and fuel international expansion.
But before diving into the how, what, who, and why, visitors come face-to-face with beauty incarnate. An entry gallery is devoted to the star power of the glittering Manchester tiara, created in 1903 for Consuelo, Dowager Duchess of Manchester. Consuelo Yznaga, the daughter of a wealthy Cuban-American land-owner and close friend of Alva Vanderbilt, married Viscount George Montagu, the future 8th Duke of Manchester, in 1876. The tiara is set with over one thousand brilliant-cut diamonds and more than four hundred rose-cut diamonds, given to Cartier by the duchess. Executed in the prevailing garland style of the period, the tiara with its graduated hearts and C-scrolls inspired by eighteenth-century ironwork and architectural ornament in Paris and Versailles represented a fanciful return to pre-revolutionary France.
Cartier’s relentless creative energy is treated in the first main section of the exhibition that visitors will encounter, and features a plethora of designs based upon exotic sources and materials found far beyond Europe. The Franco-Egyptian exhibition of 1911 at the Louvre and the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922 fanned the flames of Egyptomania among the public, and inspired the company to produce jewelry influenced by the ancient empire of the Nile. The firm also purchased quantities of Egyptian and other Eastern antiquities as source material for their designers, leading to Islamic-, Persian-, Asian-, and Indian-inflected ornaments, all of which receive individualized treatment in the exhibition.
In the succeeding section, craftsmanship, materials, and gemstones take center stage. Cartier sought the finest quality available, often sourcing exceptional examples from the collections of its royal clientele. It was for this purpose that Jacques Cartier, head of the London firm since 1909, traveled to India in 1911. The timing for such a trip was propitious. Not only was it the year of George V’s coronation in London, but it also was the year of the Delhi Durbar, a display of colonial power that marked the beginning of the new king’s reign in India. The trip resulted in patronage from maharajas who wished to transform their ancestral jewelry settings into a Western idiom. One of the more spectacular examples emerging from this new stream of clients was the Patiala necklace of 1928, commissioned by Bhupinder Singh, maharajah of Patiala. Arranged in five ropes of gemstones, the necklace is a glittering display of Indian wealth.
The cultural exchange was two-sided. Cartier’s encounter with the maharajahs and their polychromatic traditional jewelry of carved emeralds, rubies, and sapphires led to the firm’s innovative Tutti Frutti style. Widely acclaimed, and popularly seen in bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and other adornments, on at least one occasion the Tutti Frutti style left its mark on a bandeau (a simpler style of tiara), made in 1928 for Edwina Mountbatten, later Countess Mountbatten of Burma. The commission and its execution were auspicious, in view of the fact that the Mountbattens later served as viceroy and vicereine of India from 1947 to 1948.
As for the section devoted to Cartier’s strategies for success, Cartier received critical early support from the Countess of Nieuwekerke, who singlehandedly raised Cartier’s profile with her purchase of fifty-five objects in the 1850s. The countess introduced her friend, Princess Mathilde, the niece of Napoleon I and a cousin of Napoleon III, to the firm, and a parade of other well-placed patrons followed. By 1899, with a boutique in the fashionable rue de la Paix, Cartier was a respected Parisian society jeweler. In 1902 the firm expanded to London, garnering royal warrants, which served as stamps of approval, along the way, beginning in 1904 with Edward VII.
Building on these achievements, and seeking new collectors, Cartier became an early leader in modern timepieces, introducing one of the earliest wristwatches in 1904, followed by its iconic Tank design of 1917. Such pieces gave the firm the opportunity to deploy the panther motif, now considered inseparable from Cartier’s identity. In 1912 the company debuted a series of alluring mystery clocks, marvelous creations with hands that appear disconnected from any mechanism or movement. The clocks were richly ornamented with rare materials like mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, jade, and enamel. In the postwar era, designs came to reflect a countercurrent taste for the baroque, as exemplified by the Crash wristwatch.
Distributed throughout the exhibition are videos that bring all these glittering adornments to life by connecting them to the people who wore and worked them. Film clips of Cartier’s celebrated patrons, from movie and music stars like Grace Kelly and Rihanna to the crowned heads of Europe, will offer visitors the excitement of seeing jewels with their famous owners. In addition to these vintage images, an audio-visual space features the talented stone setters and other gifted craftsmen involved in the fabrication process.
