Some jewels you don’t just look at: they take your breath away. That’s what happened to me in front of the Cartier jewels, when I visited the great exhibition Cartier. Le style et l’histoire at the Grand Palais in Paris.
I never expected that jewellery could stir so much emotion. And yet there they were, hundreds of pieces lined up together for the first time, each one telling a story.
Would you like to know why I consider them true works of art?
Let’s go!
The origins: from Napoleon III to Edward VII
In the beginning there was Louis-François Cartier, who in 1847 took over his master’s workshop in Paris. The turning point came with the Second Empire: among his first illustrious clients was Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, and from there the maison never stopped rising.
It was above all the founder’s grandsons who turned it into an international legend. It was King Edward VII of England who coined the phrase that stuck — “the jeweller of kings, the king of jewellers” — and who entrusted Cartier with as many as 27 tiaras for his coronation in 1902. Ever since, Cartier has adorned princesses, sovereigns, actresses and collectors the world over.
Gifts of love and timeless masterpieces
Wandering among the display cases, I admired the jewels of an Indian Maharaja in love with Europe: the famous Maharaja of Patiala commissioned from Cartier, in 1928, a necklace with almost three thousand diamonds, one of the most staggering pieces ever made.
And then the gifts of love: objects conceived for the theatre, for a gala evening, for an empress; presents from rich, besotted men to their muses, from Grace Kelly to Elizabeth Taylor. Jewels worn at crucial moments of history, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, that seemed to speak of the people who had worn them.
Not just diamonds and precious stones
When we think of jewellery, precious stones come to mind at once, but this is exactly where the exhibition surprised me: alongside tiaras and necklaces there were everyday objects turned into masterpieces.
Vanity cases, cigarette holders, watches, umbrella handles, pin cases, ornaments: everything, in the hands of Cartier’s craftsmen, became a sculpture in miniature. That is the maison’s true lesson — that art can hide even in an everyday object, when made with absolute mastery.
Where to see Cartier jewels today
The Grand Palais exhibition closed on 16 February 2014, but Cartier’s treasures keep travelling the world. The maison holds the Cartier Collection, an archive of historic pieces that rotates among the great international exhibitions: every few years it reappears in a different museum, from Paris to London, from New York to Shanghai.
If you love this kind of beauty, keep an eye on the temporary exhibitions in the big capitals; and if you’re passing through Paris, a museum like the Petit Palais will let you breathe the same Belle Époque atmosphere in which Cartier became a legend.
And you, do you think a jewel can be a work of art on a par with a painting? Stop in front of a Cartier piece: you might change your mind, exactly as I did.
