Rock stars: Cartier’s greatest hits

The huddles of people vying to glimpse the glittering beauties speak volumes.

It’s vexing to have to queue or jostle to see a ring, but who can blame the thousands of excited visitors who pre-booked tickets to see the huge Cartier show currently on at London’s V&A Museum?

Humans love sparkle and shine, and like a kind of “spidey-sense”, our magpie instincts go into overdrive when ultra-fine, uber-expensive and rare jewellery is nearby.

And, given that most of us aren’t members of royal households who were gifted obscene quantities of stones and jewellery over centuries, when else are we going to see items inlaid with millions’ worth of diamonds and precious gems?

French jewellery house Cartier is, of course, arguably the bastion of this kind of luxury. The Richemont-owned brand was founded by the Cartier family in Paris in 1847 and, through fierce ambition, smarts and a collective eye for what clients would scramble for, it has become one of the most renowned high jewellery maisons in the world.

Its modern-day iteration, as part of Richemont, is going gangbusters. The group reported an 11% rise in jewellery sales in its most recent financial year – with Cartier playing a major role – and it’s this long, shining heritage that’s the focus of the current display.

Curating the Cartier cache

For the exhibition, its curators – the museum’s senior jewellery curator Helen Molesworth and globally renowned jewellery editor Rachel Garrahan – have gathered 350 important Cartier pieces that shine a light on different facets of the brand’s story. When we chatted to Garrahan over a cocktail, her eyes lit up at the mere mention of the items to which she had access in deciding what to feature. In selecting works from the Cartier archive and private owners (including King Charles), she and the team tell a compelling story.

As she and Molesworth put it: “This exhibition explores how Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, together with their father Alfred, adopted a strategy of original design, exceptional craftsmanship and international expansion that transformed the Parisian family jeweller into a household name.”

From the global influences the brothers harnessed, to their famous clients and how their studios craft such stupefying pieces, this jewellery box of a show dramatically and beguilingly highlights the exceptional craft that underpins the business.

I saw the Cartier exhibition at Paris’s Grand Palais in 2013, and while that was a vast spectacle featuring pieces, digital graphics and non-jewelled archival items, the V&A has focused on the topic at hand – showing off necklaces, brooches, bracelets and the likes, with dramatic lighting and concise information. This is all about the jewels.

Many iconic Cartier styles are represented in the showcase. These include the deliciously engraved ruby, emerald and sapphire morsels of the Tutti Frutti collection, and La Panthère – the languid, lounging feline that has appeared in its work since 1914.

Then, there are the one-off pieces that would, to put it mildly, blow the minds of even the most jewel-agnostic (sacrilege!).

Take, for example, the exceptional three-dimensional pavé-set rose composed of baguette, single- and circular-cut diamonds. It was made in 1938 and worn by England’s Princess Margaret to the coronation of her sister, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1953 at Westminster Abbey.

Design nerds will note how the white architecture of the piece (white stones set in white metal) and its poetic naturalist spirit are a perfect example of Cartier’s 1930s design language.

Speaking of another queen-adjacent character: Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, may be a hotly debated figure in the annals of British royalty, but one thing not up for debate is her fabulous style – and her jewels, on show here, speak loudly to this.

Embracing a more-is-more aesthetic, she commissioned an almost 10cm-high ruby, sapphire, emerald, citrine and diamond flamingo clip, mounted by Cartier, Paris, in 1940. Simpson had some of her older pieces taken apart to create this exuberant item.

Upping the ante

We’d die for that feathered fellow – but it becomes a mere tchotchke in comparison to the Patiala Necklace, designed and made by Cartier in 1928 for the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh.

The 2,930 diamonds in the piece weigh a staggering 1,000 carats – centred around an exceptional (and wildly valuable) yellow diamond of 234.49 carats, first presented in Paris in 1889 during the Universal Exhibition. This is the largest necklace ever made by Cartier, and it was painstakingly reconstructed by the brand in the 2000s after parts of it had gone missing for decades.

In 1968, Mexican actress María Félix placed an equally wild order: a huge snake necklace! This 57cm-long articulated metal reptile is paved with 2,473 diamonds. Though the house isn’t especially known for bejewelled snakes (that’s Bulgari’s domain), this Cartier creature is one for the books.

The show drips with diamonds, but it’s also a joy to take in the colourful creations the maison has fashioned over the centuries. These include an Egyptian-inspired scarab brooch – a stunning example of the Art Deco mania that gripped the world in the 1920s. The piece was created in 1925, the same year the landmark Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was held in Paris. That exhibition, incidentally, is where the name “Art Deco” originates.

And then there are the tiaras. The stuff of royal weddings and period dramas, but getting up close with the bevvy of headpieces Cartier has created for the rich, regal and famous is something else.

As the museum notes: “The ultimate symbol of status, wealth and elegance, tiaras also represent the highest expression of a jeweller’s creative imagination and technical skill – and are still made by Cartier today.”

We rather fancy one – especially if it looks anything like the powerful aquamarine, diamond and platinum tiara dating from 1937, or the Scroll Tiara, commissioned for the Countess of Essex in 1902.

The show also features a smattering of watches and clocks, but it’s the gem-bedecked pieces that will leave you dazzled, slightly dazed – and quietly plotting how to turn your costume jewellery drawer into something a little more high end.

Cartier is on at the V&A South Kensington, London, until November 16.

_{Image credits: Nils Hermann, Vincent Wulveryck, © Victoria and Albert Museum and Collection Cartier.}