Cartier’s influential history on show at London’s V&A Museum

What do Rihanna, Queen Elizabeth II and the Maharajah of Patiala have in common? Their passion for Cartier jewellery, as shown by the London exhibition telling the story of the jewellery house founded in the 19th century.

The landmark exhibition, simply called ‘Cartier’, will open on Saturday at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum in London, and will run until November 16.

It will be the first retrospective for the French jewellery house founded in 1847 to be held in London for 30 years, said Helen Molesworth, the exhibition’s leading curator, talking to the AFP agency.

Above all, she added, it will be the first Cartier exhibition of such scope to be held in the UK.

It will showcase to visitors 350 pieces of jewellery, between tiaras, brooches, rings, watches and necklaces, coming from the world’s greatest museums, from Cartier’s own collection, and from private loans, like those from King Charles III and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Some of the pieces will be exhibited for the first time, and the event is already sold out for the months of April and May.

Major exhibits include the brooch featuring a 23-carat Williamson pink diamond ordered by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, shown in public for the first time, the Scroll tiara ordered in 1902 and worn at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, as well as by Rihanna on the cover of W magazine in 2016, a brooch in the shape of a rose worn by Princess Margaret, Elizabeth II’s sister, and Grace Kelly’s engagement ring.

The pièce de résistance is a room exhibiting 18 tiaras made between 1900 and today.

Royal warrant

Glamour aside, the exhibition looks beyond the glitz of this array of gemstones.

“One of the things we wanted to showcase was Cartier’s heritage,” as a house that has been able to renew itself and continue to thrive, said Molesworth.

The exhibition has delved into the sources that have inspired Cartier, from Islamic and Persian art to the art of India and Russia.

“The Cartier brothers used to journey extensively, and they fed off their travels to foster their inventiveness,” said Molesworth.

First and foremost, the Cartier brothers were able to anticipate trends. The stunning diamond necklaces of the Roaring Twenties were followed by more understated gold bracelets designed in the 1960s, and now iconic.

“I think that one of Cartier’s great achievements is that it always is ahead of its time, and at the cutting-edge of fashion,” said Molesworth.

The house’s history is intermingled with history with a capital H, as shown by the section dedicated to the ‘liberation bird’, a piece designed in 1944 to celebrate the end of World War II.

Alongside it, other brooches made during Nazi Germany’s occupation of France feature caged birds. One bird in particular comes in the colours of the French flag.

The V&A exhibition’s other main feature is that it dwells on the special relationship between Cartier and the UK’s royal family.

It began in the early 1900s, in 1904, when King Edward VII granted a royal warrant to Cartier, a much-coveted recognition dating back to the Middle Ages, distinguishing the best artisans. Cartier still holds this warrant.

“Queen Mary, Elizabeth II’s grandmother, was a keen Cartier collector,” said Molesworth, underlining that each generation of the royal family has added to the collection.

Some of the items are well-known to the British public, like the Halo Tiara ordered by King George VI (Elizabeth II’s father) for his wife, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The tiara was later worn by Princess Anne at her first wedding, in 1992, and more recently by Kate Middleton, when she married Prince William in 2011.