‘A dazzling exhibition of bling for billionaires, but it’s little more than a glorified department store concession with a heart of stone’
Two Starz
Cartier, The Sainsbury Gallery, V&A
Until 16th November. Tickets from £27. To book, go here
The Citizen Reviewz…
It easy to be quickly seduced by this exquisitely curated exhibition. How could any eye not be dazzled by 350 pieces of the most stunning jewels and objects ever made, displayed with such style and extravagance.
The craftsmanships on show is the best of the best, some of them more than 100 years old, and much of this collection is from Cartier’s own hoard of pieces that it has re-acquired over the decades from past clients at vast expense.
The drama is cranked up from the moment you enter the exhibition to find yourself in darkness, except for a series of wall sunken cabinets lit to the max. Inside is the bling of the super rich that the poor people have come to worship.
You will see every imaginable gem and precious metal crafted into all the usual forms of traditional jewellery – rings, tiaras, watches, bangles, necklaces, brooches, earrings. But it is the zoo of miniature sculptures of familiar animals that really pull you up. There are leopards, tigers, stags, flamingoes, snakes, penguins, all re-imagined and encrusted with precious stones. Then there are boats, books, clocks, nicknacks, and even a pair of small stone Buddhas with ruby eyes and tiny pearl earrings.
Going from one gleaming cabinet to the next is exhausting on the eyes and the spirit and I soon found myself tiring. There is only so many times that one can inwardly gush at the beauty of such an array of objects. How many Ooohs and Ahhhs can a viewer muster without being fatigued?
And then, of course, there are a few elephants in the room that keep making noises. For example – How much did this or that cost? There are no values – either historical or present – attached to the objects. Obviously, it would be oh-so vulgar to add such detail, but everyone is wondering the same question. For example, how much did Wallace Simpson pay for that famous flamingo? Would that be too much to ask? I’d like to know.
It is only when you stop to think about this exhibition and look beyond the diamonds and platinum fittings that you realise it’s glaringly quite hollow. Yes, the objects are beyond amazing, but where is the story, the narrative – and where is its heart? If there is one, it is a heart of stone.
When it comes to detail, the exhibition is little more than costume jewellery made of paste and the display resembles a glorified department store concession, albeit one for billionaires. It is all a 24 carat object lesson in corporate vanity exhibitionism.
Apart from a wall caption at the entrance about the three Cartier brothers – Louis, Pierre and Jacques – there is precious little about them and how they turned a small jewellery business founded by their grandfather Louis-Francois in 1847 into a truly mega ‘Maison’ with royalty and Hollywood in its thrall.
The V&A makes great play of the fact that they “set out to create the first globally recognised jewellery house” and became known as “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers”, but they tell us nothing of how they did it.
I found myself wanting to know how it was all achieved and what were the lives of these stellar customers like. Who were these people, how were they so rich? Who commissions a necklace of such ridiculous expense, with gigantic stones, and where on earth did they wear it? There must be archive photos of these famous people at balls and events. Instead, we just get a name beneath the briefest of captions.
Then there is the business side to Cartier’s remarkable ascent. Cartier is the 20th century’s masterclass in branding that has been replicated by countless luxury houses ever since, but there is nothing of the struggles and business acumen that made them succeed. And the true unsung heroes of it all – the craftsmen and designers who actually made all this exquisite ephemera – are all but invisible.
But, more than this, I found myself looking at these objects and their thousands of stones and wondering about the bleeding fingers of exhausted black hands that originally clawed it all out of the hardened mud. Now that is a story – but it is not a pretty one and it certainly doesn’t fit on a wall caption at the V&A. What was the real price of all this bling?
