Melbourne Winter Masterpieces: Cartier

13 September 2026, by Dolla Merrillees

In this week's blog post, Costume Society member Dolla Merrillees reviews Cartier at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, on display until October 4th, 2026.

When I think of Cartier, it is the panther—with its seductive combination of untamed elegance and strength—that invariably springs to mind. No other motif has perhaps become so closely identified with the French luxury house. First appearing in 1914, as an abstract onyx-diamond spotted pattern on a wristwatch, the panther was later brought vividly to life under the visionary direction of Jeanne Toussaint. Appointed creative director in 1933 and herself nicknamed La Panthère, Toussaint transformed the animal into an enduring expression of the Maison, embraced by some of the most stylish women of the twentieth century, among them Daisy Fellowes and Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor.

Toussaint and the panther are just two of the many personalities, motifs and influences that have shaped Cartier’s distinctive visual language and are explored in this comprehensive exhibition, a collaboration between the V&A, the NGV and Cartier.  Bringing together nearly 400 jewels, precious objects, timepieces and archival materials, the exhibition, first shown at the V&A in London in 2025, charts the evolution of the Maison from its origins in nineteenth-century Paris to its emergence as one of the world’s most celebrated purveyors of luxury, patronised by royalty, aristocrats, film stars and an international elite.

Cartier’s story unfolds across eight distinct galleries, taking us on a journey through twentieth-century history, from the elegance and opulence of the Belle Époque and the final years of imperial Russia, through the exuberance of the Roaring Twenties and the emergence of Hollywood glamour. Along the way, the exhibition traces the Maison’s international expansion under brothers Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier—the third generation of the family business founded by their grandfather, Louis-François Cartier, in Paris in 1847—through to the present day, as part of the Swiss luxury group Richemont.  While broadly chronological, the narrative is punctuated by displays devoted to particular facets of the Maison’s story, from its distinctive use of colour and an obsession with stones to the evolution of motifs such as the panther.

Designing a display for objects relatively small in scale requires a spatial approach that enhances rather than competes with their intricacy and craftsmanship. For the Melbourne presentation, the NGV worked closely with Rotterdam-based Studio Sabine Marcelis and CLOUD to develop, as Senior Curator Amanda Dunsmore explains, “a contemporary experience inspired by colour, light, reflection and materiality, all qualities that are synonymous with Cartier’s jewels.” The result is a succession of immersive galleries that feel almost like jewel boxes, each saturated in a distinctive monochromatic palette inspired by the pieces it contains. In the gallery devoted to stars of stage and screen, for example, rich shades of green take their cue from the serpent and crocodile necklaces created for Mexican film star María Félix. A bespoke soundscape by composers Erkki Veltheim and Ai Yamamoto adds another sensory layer, subtly shifting in mood and texture as visitors move through the exhibition.

The Melbourne iteration is also distinguished by the inclusion of objects and narratives with particular resonance for local audiences. These include the Maison’s fascination with the country’s distinctive fauna, represented by a pair of kangaroos (1905), one carved from grey agate and the other from nephrite, as well as its use of Australian materials, most notably opals. A highlight is a bracelet (2015) set with a 189.345-carat black opal, alongside sapphires, emeralds and diamonds in white gold, displayed together with its original 2013 design drawing.
 

“The focus on opera singer Dame Nellie Melba,” says Dunsmore, “is also unique to the NGV show.”  One of the house’s most prominent Australian clients, Melba wore Cartier jewels both on and off stage, including several pieces combining turquoise, diamonds, platinum and yellow gold. Among them are a corsage ornament (1902) and a convertible tiara (1908) that could also be worn as a necklace—its versatility reflecting Melba’s movement between the grandeur of the operatic stage and more intimate social settings.

Melba is one of many figures of cultural and historical significance represented throughout the exhibition, but it is the Maison’s remarkable breadth of global influences that provides some of its most compelling material. In the section titled “A World of Inspiration”, objects are complemented by a rich array of archival material—including design drawings, photographs, source books and antiquities—that illustrate how visual and cultural references from ancient Egypt, India, Japan, China, Iran and the wider Islamic world were encountered, absorbed and reinterpreted within Cartier’s distinctive design vocabulary. Particularly fascinating are the hybrid jewels that draw together multiple cultural and stylistic traditions, among them the tiara commissioned by Baron Pierre de Gunzburg in 1912, which combined Russian, Persian and Ottoman motifs.

Yet the exhibition’s greatest strength also exposes its central limitation. Cartier’s high-jewellery legacy is inextricably linked to imperial networks, but the critical context of these colonial and extractive encounters is largely missing. Cultural exchange is framed primarily as artistic inspiration and cross-cultural dialogue. Collections such as Tutti Frutti, with their adaptation of Indian carved gemstones and floral motifs, invite more complex questions about appropriation and the unequal structures through which objects, materials and wealth circulated. Similarly, the section devoted to gemstones says little about the extraction and trade of precious stones, or their histories of colonial exploitation and economic inequality. Nor do we learn much about the highly skilled, largely anonymous craftspeople who made these objects—their stories or the conditions of their labour.  For an exhibition so attentive to craftsmanship, materiality and the process of making, their relative absence is particularly striking.

These are telling omissions, and an increasingly familiar problem in exhibitions produced in collaboration with fashion and luxury houses, in which the brand is both the subject of the display and a co-author of its narrative.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that the exhibition concludes with the tiara, the ultimate expression of Cartier’s long association with aristocratic patronage, status and wealth. Entitled “Tiaras: Pinnacle of the Jeweller’s Art”, the gallery brings together some of Cartier’s most spectacular examples within an intimate, low-lit circular room drenched in ruby red. Highlights include the celebrated Scroll tiara (1902), worn by Lady Clementine Churchill to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and two striking turquoise and diamond tiaras, dating from 1930 and 1936, worn by sisters Lady Nancy Astor and Lady Phyllis Brand. 

It is a dazzling finale, a perfect echo of King Edward VII’s famous description of Cartier as “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers.”
 

Cartier is on view at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, until October 4th 2026. Entry is ticketed, bookable online.

Dolla has recently reviewed other exhibitions across the globe, including Ashes to Fashion at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. You can catch up on her review on our blog.