First Look: NGV Transforms Into a Velvet-Lined Jewellery Box in This Dazzling Cartier Exhibition

For many people, Cartier begins with the Love bracelet and ends with the Tank watch. But the French luxury house is responsible for some of the most significant jewellery creations in history, prompting King Edward VII to call it “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers”.

The NGV’s latest Winter Masterpieces exhibition, simply titled Cartier, captures the breadth of the maison’s legacy, craftsmanship and cultural influence. Exhibited last year at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, this is the first time the show has toured internationally. Almost 300 pieces make their Australian debut, all drawn from major museums, private collections and the Cartier Collection, the jeweller’s own archive of historic pieces reacquired over decades.

The opening corridor is dimly lit, illuminated only by the soft, iridescent glow of a geometric light installation stretching along one wall. Facet Horizontal, by Dutch artist and designer Sabine Marcelis, reflects the way a diamond catches and refracts light.

The moment I step into the first gallery, I gasp. “I’ve never seen the NGV look like this.” Miranda Wallace, the NGV’s senior curator of international exhibitions, nods beside me. “It’s always exciting with these shows because we put an awful lot into reimagining the exhibition space,” she says. “But with this exhibition, I also feel it’s completely different.”

She’s right. The grandeur of the exhibition design – created by Marcelis and her partner in work and life, architect Paul Cournet of Rotterdam-based design studio Cloud – is as transporting as the jewels themselves. Each room is enveloped in a rich monochrome palette drawn from precious gemstones. Wrapped in velvet from the floor to ceiling, it’s almost like stepping into an exquisitely crafted jewellery box. “The inspiration was partly this idea of being in a subterranean space, so you’ve got that dominant light above the jewels,” Wallace says.

The exhibition begins with the story of the three brothers who transformed Cartier into a global powerhouse. After inheriting the maison founded by their grandfather, Louis-François Cartier, Louis, Pierre and Jacques expanded beyond Paris, establishing outposts in London and New York to build a clientele that included royalty, aristocrats and industrial titans.

Original sketchbooks, stationery and archival photographs chart this period, including an image of Cartier’s now-famous Fifth Avenue mansion in New York, bought by Pierre in 1917 in an extraordinary deal: a pearl necklace and US$100.

Monumental tiaras bookend the show. The first piece you’ll encounter is the Manchester tiara, a 1903 creation showcasing Cartier’s signature Garland style, inspired by 18th-century French architecture and ironwork. But it’s the final gallery that leaves the deepest impression.

Drenched in burgundy, the hall is dedicated entirely to Cartier’s crowning jewels. Twenty-four tiaras are displayed in cylindrical vitrines descending from the ceiling, as if floating in space, while others are nestled into wall cases. They trace the Garland style to designs inspired by classical Roman and Greek traditions, as well as Islamic and Russian influences.

“Tiaras are always seen like marvels,” says Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s director of image, style and heritage. “Because it’s on the head it’s very visible, and is also something that makes the link between this world and the upper world and the gods, so it’s a very symbolic piece in terms of jewellery in all civilisations.”

Among them is the 1902 Scroll tiara, worn by Clementine Churchill to the coronation of Elizabeth II before finding a new audience more than a century later with Rihanna’s iconic 2016 W Magazine cover. On the opposite end of the room are two tiaras of diamond and carved turquoise; one belonged to Nancy Astor, the American-born socialite who became the first woman to take a seat in the British Parliament, and the other was created for her sister Phyllis Brand shortly after. They haven’t been seen together since the 1930s. Nearby, the Sun tiara beams with a blinding 32-carat yellow diamond.

At the centre of the gallery, a dramatic circular light artwork by Marcelis bathes the room in a spectrum of colours, its reflection hovering perfectly above every cased tiara like a halo.

The NGV iteration of the exhibition diverges from its V&A counterpart. “We wanted to tell some different stories,” Wallace says. One of those centres on Jeanne Toussaint, Cartier’s influential creative director from 1933 to 1970. Known for her visionary eye, Toussaint helped steer the maison away from the geometric restraint of art deco towards a more expressive style inspired by the natural world. Lizards, birds and dragonflies became recurring motifs, while bold colour combinations challenged prevailing tastes in Western jewellery.

On display in a ruby-red room are colourful pieces of Cartier’s celebrated Tutti Frutti designs, revived by Toussaint, as well as other important gemstones in history acquired by the jeweller.

“They caused a huge sensation,” Wallace says. “Blue and green, red and green – these kinds of colour combinations were quite new in Western jewellery.” A neighbouring silver gallery showcases the evolution of the panther motif and Toussiant’s 3D reinterpretation of it, now synonymous with Cartier.

There are also pieces connected to Australian history. A cabinet of jewels commissioned by Dame Nellie Melba, including a turquoise tiara, sits alongside a grand painting of the renowned opera singer from the NGV collection. Other creations feature stones sourced from Australia, like a spectacular cuff set with a 189.345-carat black opal.

By the golden age of Hollywood, Cartier had become a favourite among movie stars, who wore its creations both on screen and off. Among chartreuse-hued walls, see pieces owned by Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and María Félix – the maison’s celebrity clientele marked a shift from royalty and aristocrats to some of the most photographed women in the world.

A lattice of Burmese rubies and diamonds make up the celebrated necklace gifted to Taylor by her third husband Mike Todd. Félix’s extraordinary menagerie of jewels reflects her flamboyant personal style: a pair of opulent crocodiles entwined around the neck, and a serpent necklace with diamonds and scales enamelled in the green, white and red of the Mexican flag. The Toussiant necklace at the heart of Ocean’s 8 also sits here, alongside emerald- and ruby-encrusted rosary beads ordered by Wes Anderson for The Phoenician Scheme.

You can see the global inspiration that shaped Cartier’s designs across the decades. One hall brings together books and other reference materials from ancient Egypt, India, Japan, China, Iran and the Islamic world. Displayed alongside them are jewels that reflect those influences, most notably the ceremonial Patiala necklace commissioned by Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh in 1928, considered the largest and most extravagant commission for Cartier to date. (The exhibition doesn’t touch on the complex colonial issues and the unethical supply chains associated with these jewels.)

For Rainero, the show cuts deeper than the extraordinary beauty of precious stones. “All of these objects mark something important in the life of people, whether it’s a wedding, a birth,” he says. “Very often jewellery is a gift for very deep feelings, and it’s that human dimension that you can feel in such an exhibition.”

Cartier opens at NGV International on June 12 and runs until October 4, 2026. Tickets are available now.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of the National Gallery of Victoria.