Cartier in America Exhibit

“Cartier and America” Exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA

According to the press release for this fabulous exhibit, Cartier and America traces the history of the House of Cartier from the Belle Epoque through to the 1960s and 1970s, when Cartier supplied celebrities of the day with their jewels and luxury accessories. The exhibit includes a spectacular array of more than 200 objects: jewelry of the Gilded Age and Art Deco periods and numerous commissions for American “royalty,” Hollywood stars, and heiresses. Americans who famously collected Cartier include Marion Davies, Mrs. Cole Porter, Mary Pickford, Barbara Hutton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marjorie Merriweather Post.

The exhibition marks Cartier’s 100 years in the US and focuses on pieces owned by Americans, including a pair of rock crystal and diamond bracelets worn by Gloria Swanson in the movie Sunset Boulevard, Daisy Fellowes’s famous “Tutti Frutti” necklace, and the exotic flamingo brooch made for the Duchess of Windsor.

Private lenders have contributed pieces. The personal jewelry of Princess Grace of Monaco from the time of her wedding to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, in 1956 will be featured: her engagement ring—a 10.47-carat emerald-cut diamond set with two baguette diamonds mounted in platinum––a grand diamond necklace, and more informal gold brooches in the form of birds. The Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C., is lending jewelry made for cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Post’s brooch, one of the most spectacular pieces of jewelry made in the 1920s, incorporates Indian carved emeralds, one of which dates from the Mughal era.

This exhibit will be in San Francisco from now through April 18th.