Cartier, V&A: A spellbinding, once-in-a-lifetime display of old-world glamour

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09-04-2025

The Maison Cartier was founded in Paris in 1847, just five years before the Victoria and Albert Museum opened its doors. Nearly two centuries later, the South Kensington jewel box has been transformed into a spellbinding venue for this once-in-a-lifetime retrospective of the House that has become synonymous with unfathomable fortunes and old-world glamour.
The exhibition deftly draws the viewer into the spheres of cultural influence that inspired three brothers, Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, to 'fulfill their dream and take their House to all four corners of the globe'. Through sheer ambition and imaginative vision, the siblings catapulted their grandfather's family business into a world-class establishment patronised by royals, film stars and bankers' wives.
Cartier's early designs took inspiration from the decorative arts of 18th-century France: festoons, ribbons, tassels and wreathes. The Lily stomacher brooch from 1906 is a beautiful example of the Garland Style's neoclassical inspiration. But the brothers did not limit their visions to the stylistic realms of Louis XVI. With the gluttony of connoisseurs, they voraciously assimilated cultural motifs and iconographies from far beyond the confines of their fatherland; panthers and lobed cartouches from Indo-Persian carpets, Chinese dragons with cabochon emerald eyes and jade medallions carved in imitation of coins from the reign of Emperor Guangxu.
The House of Cartier has thrived on elevating the whims of popular taste to an art form. In the midst of the Egyptomania that sprung from the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, it launched a series of ancient Egypt-themed creations. They rolled out scarab belts, Sekhmet broaches, and even an Art Deco mantelpiece clock engraved with hieroglyphs that were in the Egyptian style but not 'linguistically or historically accurate'.
Of particular note is a 1925 vanity case in the shape of an Egyptian sarcophagus. Every surface of this miniature tomb is decorated: two carved emerald sphinxes enrobed and encrusted with onyx and diamonds perch on either end; an intricate lotus frieze runs along its length above which rests a lid of carved bone bearing a relief of a lady and lotus. On the base, a gold plaque depicting a female figure and heron.
Beyond the Maison's preeminence in the aspirational market of expensive trinket-objets, it is the mesmerising series of unique commissions that have almost single-handedly secured Cartier's legendary status. Among the most iconic of these commissions are the dazzling Cartier tiaras that anchor the well-crafted structure of the show. Upon entering the exhibition, viewers are greeted by the Manchester Tiara, which was ordered in 1903 by the Dowager Duchess of Manchester who supplied 1,513 diamonds for the design. Upon exit, they're ushered through the tiara hall of fame; from an exceptional black opal tiara that converts into a necklace, gifted to Mary Cavendish by her husband in 1937, to kokoshnik-style tiaras, Tutti Frutti tiaras and the olive wreath wedding tiara of Marie Bonaparte, the great-grandniece of Napoleon.
However, the most astounding piece in this exhibition by any measure is the centrepiece of the Maharaja of Patiala's 1928 order from Cartier Paris, 'one of the largest commissions ever received by the firm'. The Patiala necklace consists of five rows of 2,930 diamonds and two rubies, and originally centred on the 234.65-carat yellow De Beers diamond. The necklace mysteriously disappeared from the Patiala treasury after Indian Independence in 1947 and was not rediscovered until 1988 when it was found in London with its largest stones missing.
There are plenty of gobstopper-sized gems to gawp at in this stellar exhibition and, though viewers may struggle to tear themselves away from these twinkling lumps of pressurised carbon and their more colourful counterparts, they will certainly leave with a greater understanding and appreciation of the pivotal role that Cartier has played in the historical development of high jewellery. Take your wife, who'll dream of leaving you for a maharaja – and take your daughter, in the hope that she might actually marry one.
From Sat April 12-Nov 16; vam.ac.uk
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