Le Grand Tour: Locating the Source of Cartier’s Worldly Art Influences
Image credit: Installation view, Half-Century of Cartier in Japan and Beyond: an Everlasting Dialogue of Beauty and Art, Hyokeikan, Tokyo National Museum, Japan, June 12 – July 28, 2024. Courtesy Cartier
“Platinum remains white, and diamond will always shine,” Pascale Lepeu, Director of the Cartier Collection, wistfully advises me in a spacious hotel apartment overlooking Tokyo’s Imperial Palace. There’s a statue of a panther prowling across an elegant console above her left shoulder – the Maison’s totemic guardian of sorts.
The Cartier Collection, created in 1983, comprises over 3,000 jewels, watches, clocks and precious objects: the Maison’s carefully conserved objets d’Art. This archive of some of the most significant pieces ever made by the Maison charts the legacy of savoir-faire since its founding in 1847, when Louis-François Cartier took over the workshop of his master Adolphe Picard at 29 rue Montorgueil in Paris. It forms the basis for museum exhibitions – more than forty and counting – which allow the public to experience the storied brand's history and heritage.
In 1898, Louis-François’ grandson, Louis Cartier, joined the Maison. His arrival consolidated the Maison's codes; they became known for their ‘Garland’ style and remain synonymous with Art Deco. In his time, the Maison became the official purveyor of numerous royal courts—among them Britain, Spain, Siam, and Russia. These are just some of the cultures that have influenced Cartier’s designs over time.
“Cartier was born in Europe. Cartier was born in France,” affirms Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s Director of Image, Style and Heritage. “So, it was good to look around and be curious about other forms of beauty – to make our sense of beauty evolve. This is the global frame of our interest in other cultures and other forms of beauty. It’s stayed true since the beginning, with Louis Cartier.”
Image credit: (L-R) Cartier Paris, Large Portique mystery clock, 1923, gold, platinum, rock crystal, rose-cut diamonds, Galalith cabochons (originally coral), onyx, black enamel, 35 x 23 x 13 cm; Cartier London, Scarab brooch, 1924, gold, platinum, Ancient Egyptian faience, diamonds, emeralds, smoky quartz, enamel; Cartier Paris, Hindu necklace, commissioned in 1936, altered in 1963, platinum, gold, diamonds, sapphires, rubies. Courtesy Cartier
The Cartier Collection and the aforementioned long lineage of museum exhibitions are a testament to this cross-cultural dialogue, appreciation and referencing of the art of every corner of the planet – but always with the utmost respect. “India inspired the Tutti Frutti collection directly, but really, Tutti Frutti is an interpretation of India by Cartier. There are a lot of Islamic arts, too, and the influence of Chinese art. But always with Cartier, it is very respectful,” Lepeu explains.
Specific pieces from the Collection, such as the 1924 Scarab Brooch or 1936 Hindu Necklace, reveal how the Maison finds inspiration abroad in motifs and materials. But where these cross-cultural dialogues are best evidenced is in the exhibitions designed to celebrate them en masse. All over the world, Cartier works with museums to stage jaw-dropping shows, bringing together the Collection and significant loans. Some celebrate specific periods of time, materials or forms, some icons, such as the Trinity, and others illuminate Cartier's relationships and its specific designs to cultures outside of Europe.
Image credit: Installation view, Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity, Dallas Museum of Art, USA, May 14 – September 18, 2022. Photo: Victor Picon © Cartier. Courtesy Cartier
Recently, these include Asia Imagined, In the Baur and Cartier Collections at Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Arts from 2015 – 2016; Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity, which was hosted by both the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Dallas Museum of Art between 2021 and 2022; and Cartier Design: A Living Legacy at Museo Jumex in 2023.
This leads us to the present moment. We are in Tokyo for the opening of MUSUBI – Half-Century of Cartier in Japan and Beyond: an Everlasting Dialogue of Beauty and Art. The exhibition is divided into two parts: one wing is dedicated to the Fondation Cartier’s ongoing engagement with Japanese artists, while the other shows the connection of the Maison to Japan. Beside a traditional Japanese inro, they display the early 20th-century vanity cases they inspired, including the one commissioned by and belonging to Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. Motifs leap from undated katagami to the brooches presented alongside them. Mystery clocks recreate the architecture of a Shinto temple or an idyllic traditional garden.
Image credit: (L-R) Inro with two compartments, c. 1890, gold and white lacquered wood, brown silk cord, 7.3 cm h, former personal collection of Louis Cartier; Cartier New York, Cigarette and vanity case, c. 1924, yellow gold, pink gold, platinum, striped pattern (pékin) of gold and white enamel, black enamel, rose-cut diamonds, 8.4 x 4.05 x 3 cm. Courtesy Cartier
But Louis Cartier went to very few of these places (though his brothers went abroad: Jacques visited India, and Pierre, who opened the London and then New York stores, went to Russia). “It's very interesting because of that incredible number of different cultures that were of interest to Louis Cartier. Many people think that he travelled a lot. I suppose he did travel for a person of his generation and of this time, but not as much as we can imagine compared to the possibilities of today,” Rainero reveals. “But, in fact, the culture at the time was more accessible through exhibitions, through catalogues of those exhibitions, essays from art historians and books. His library illustrates how cultures could be accessible to him and his designers. And he was a very active member and friend of museums.”
Lepeu adds, “His father and grandfather started it, but Louis Cartier developed this beautiful library with artefacts and as many books of arts, design and architecture as he could find. He encouraged his designers to read the books and learn about all these cultures in order to be respectful and to create the objects that our clients would want. They were looking for modernity.”
Image credit: (L-R) Le Japon artistique (Artistic Japan), Siegfried Bing. Second Volume. Archives Cartier Paris © Librairie centrale des beaux-arts, S. Bing; Cartier Paris, Two wisteria brooches, 1903, platinum, round old-cut diamonds, millegrain setting, 18.5 x 4.0 cm; Page taken from Le Japon artistique (Artistic Japan), Siegfried Bing. First Volume. Archives Cartier Paris © Librairie centrale des beaux-arts, S. Bing. Courtesy Cartier
And in that quest to find modernity, Cartier has distilled its codes and influences into a signature symbology. Take Japan: “It's so much into our style today and in our aesthetic vocabulary,” says Rainero. “For instance, the evocation of a Sakura, the prunus flower, corresponds to a combination of colours, like different nuances of pink, or maybe a volume of little parts assembled all together. So now we might have those elements in some compositions that we do not necessarily state come from Japan.”
“It's like a living language. Just as some parts of your vocabulary come from other languages and over time become part of your own, until you no longer question the origin of that vocabulary. You just unconsciously draw on it. It’s enriched your language forever.”
Lepeu, again: “Every year, we write new poems, new sentences, using our past.”
