Why do jewels bewitch us so? Put aside the fact that they are made from rare, precious materials that are gifts of the earth—gemstones that are little wonders of nature, and noble metals that gleam. Put aside, even, that jewels are creations of beauty wrought from the mastery of the human hand. No, what it is about jewellery that really speaks to our hearts and souls is that these objects can hold in them stories, emotions, sentimentality, history—intangible yet immeasurably powerful forces that we might call magic. Well, that’s the thought behind Cartier, The Power of Magic, the latest exhibition by the French jeweller that’s being staged from now to 17 February 2025 at the recently revamped Shanghai Museum East. “There is magic in Cartier items,” explains Pascale Lepeu, director of the Cartier Collection, the brand’s in-house archive established in the 1970s.
The Cartier Collection has staged numerous exhibitions around the world. Already, this is the seventh to be held in China. But there are numerous anniversaries at play too this time. The Power of Magic is the second Cartier exhibition mounted in Shanghai after the first in 2004 and it coincides with 60 years of Sino-French diplomatic relations.
As a way of underlining this relationship, the exhibition features a new degree of collaboration between the French jeweller and its Chinese host city. First, a curation led by Fragy Chu, the deputy head of exhibitions at Shanghai Museum East, that pairs Chinese cultural artefacts loaned from museums and institutions with Cartier Collection pieces. Second, a collaboration with Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang on scenography.
The partnership with Cai unveils a novel approach to exhibition scenography. The design was created using cAI, pronounced AI Cai, the artist’s custom artificial intelligence (AI) model. Cai, the artist, feeds cAI, the AI, with his oeuvre of work, and it generates design ideas within the style and scope of his practice.
The result in The Power of Magic combines these high-tech ideas with human craftsmanship. There are panels in the back of vitrines designed by cAI, but realised and carved by artists from Cai’s hometown of Fujian. And in the centre of the exhibition, marked out by flowing cloth in an oval section, is an audio experience with sounds that simulate a languid ride down the Jiangnan River.
But the point of The Power of Magic is, of course, the visual treat of seeing 348 phenomenal pieces on display—a combination of Cartier Collection jewels, cultural artefact loans from Chinese and international museums, and archival documents from Cartier itself in this exhibition. The exhibition is sectioned into five main chapters: the Glory of Symbols, the Home of Spirits, the Land of Creativity, the Charm of Personality and the Craft of Eternity.
The jewels selected for these exhibition chapters are some of the most famous Cartier creations in history. In the Glory of Symbols, for example, is a Panthère brooch (pictured above) the great cat sitting atop an incredible Kashmir sapphire cabochon, owned by the Duchess of Windsor. The brooch isn’t marked just by its beauty and the profound rarity of its central gemstone. It was created in 1949, just a year after the first three-dimensional panther jewel was introduced at Cartier, coincidentally also a commission for the Duchess.
In the Home of Spirits, meanwhile, is a selection of pieces that have an almost mystical beauty. No doubt at the time that many of these pieces were created, around the 1920s, the decorative arts of the Far East were tantalisingly exotic to European clients. Orientalism can take a sour tone, but here The Power of Magic leans into an abiding sense of wonder and cultural appreciation. Take a pair of jade screen clocks, for instance, which are carved with traditional Chinese landscapes. These are paired in this Cartier exhibition with a Chinese jade table screen to illustrate how the European objets d’art respect their source inspirations in scale, proportion and design even across continents.
Also remarkable in this section is the jadeite necklace of Barbara Hutton, a string of 27 impossibly large and luminous jadeite beads that set a world record hammer price for a Cartier piece and a jadeite jewel in 2014 when it was auctioned at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for US$27 million. It was described, at the time, as a jewel of historical importance, and the rarity and quality of the jadeite beads suggest a provenance of Chinese nobility. Cartier’s contribution, in 1933, was to mount the jadeite beads with a ruby and diamond clasp; and in 2014, to reacquire it for the Cartier Collection.
Perhaps the most bombastic pieces in this exhibition—and surely they rank highly even within the Cartier Collection—can be found in the Charm of Personality chapter. Here, a number of jewels from the collection of Mexican actress María Félix. To say that Félix’s taste in jewellery was unapologetically bold is an understatement. See, for instance, a gargantuan serpentine necklace Cartier delivered in 1968. Its 57cmlong slithering form—fully articulated—is completely paved with 2,473 diamonds, and decorated with green, black and red enamel on its belly underside.
Just as extravagant is Félix’s crocodile necklace from 1975. A pair of fully articulated crocodiles are set with yellow diamonds and emeralds, which can be separated to be worn as brooches or combined as a necklace. To make the spiked design more comfortable, Cartier designed it so the legs of the crocodiles can be swapped out for less clawed versions that don’t prick on the neck.
The piece that best embodies the exhibition’s title, though, is the academician’s sword of Jean Cocteau, the French poet and playwright who was a friend of Louis Cartier. It’s a creation that folds in, all at once, the anchoring themes of the exhibition.
The boundary-breaking artist was something of an enfant terrible in his younger years, though eventually his brilliance won out when he was invited at the age of 66 to join the Académie Française—the prestigious custodian council of the French language, whose 40 lifetime members are nicknamed ‘the immortals’. For his induction, Cocteau needed an academician’s sword—a ceremonial representation of his life’s work. He would design it himself and have it crafted by Cartier, but the sword itself would be, as was tradition, a gift from his friends.
Cocteau’s sword is shaped with a handguard of Orpheus, the mythological figure that recurs heavily in the artist’s work, in profile with his lyre. The blade of the sword is from a Toledo armoury, courtesy of Cocteau’s Spanish friends; the rubies and diamond on the guard of the sword from his socialite patron Francine Weisweiller; and the emerald set into the strings of the lyre at the hilt a gift from Coco Chanel.
Deeply personal, representative, powerfully symbolic and emotional, the sword of Cocteau bears within it a magic that is greater than the sum of its parts. The fruits of a colourful creative life, of friendships and relationships made, and of the pride of achievement, sealed with a spell in an object. Therein lies the magic. Or, as Cocteau once put it in a famous quote: “Cartier, that subtle magician who captures fragments of the moon on a thread of sun.”
In conversation with Pascale Lepeu, director of the Cartier Collection
Can you tell us a bit about your role at the Cartier Collection?
My first mission is to keep all the jewels, timepieces and precious objects, and to enlarge the Cartier Collection with the purpose of working with museums. When we work on an exhibition, we always work with curators and they are the ones who select things that will be in the exhibition.
Tell us about this idea of magic in the exhibition and how it relates to the Cartier style.
It comes from different things. First, stones are a kind of magic; little miracles found in the earth that are sometimes a billion years old. There is the craftsmanship of Cartier, which brings panthers or snakes to life. And also the magic of Cartier is to capture deep emotions and feelings in the jewels. Jewels on your grandmother or mother, or a jewel you purchase yourself, will mean a lot to you and that is a little bit magical. There is also a kind of new magic with this collaboration with cAI, who takes us into a wonderful walk in beautiful landscapes.
What is the experience of collaborating with different museums and curators like?
It’s enriching and it’s all about exchange, like the Silk Road. These exhibitions establish bridges between people and cultures. China has always fascinated Europe, since Marco Polo, Louis XIV, Versailles, [it was] everywhere. They had Chinese rooms in castles, people were fascinated with the craftsmanship and it made them dream. Cartier made our clients dream. These objects were not sold to a Chinese clientele, they were sold to Europeans or Americans.
When do we start to see this Eastern, Chinese influence in design at Cartier?
Very early. Chinese art was already in Europe for hundreds of years. We had furniture and paintings, and it was the same for Egyptian or Islamic arts. But the peak was during the art deco period. Louis Cartier and his designers found modernity in these cultures which [had] thousands of years of history. It was also a period when we started to have international exhibitions and people discovered these cultures.
This is the second Cartier exhibition in Shanghai, 20 years after the first. What has changed?
Oh, it’s completely different because both of us have evolved. The first one only had Cartier [pieces] in showcases and a very different, more French scenography with gold frames. Now the Cartier pieces are together in showcases with museum artefacts to show that interaction.
Is there a reason why Cartier does not curate its own exhibitions and works with partner museums and curators?
I’m also the curator of the Cartier Collection, but my mission is to be representative of Cartier’s history. This is the legacy that we will forward to the next generation at Cartier. It’s important to know where you come from to grow and continue. Even for craftspeople, it’s important for them to see pieces that were made 50 or 100 years ago.
Does the creative team at Cartier always go back to the Collection and archives for inspiration?
Today we are creating the 2020s style, not repeating the 1920s. We use the same vocabulary and, like a poet, we write new poems.
Do you have any favourites among the pieces at this exhibition?
I love mystery clocks. Sometimes we have the chance to look at them functioning and it’s a particular experience. The dial is empty, so you just dive into the time. Panthers are also beautiful and they really bring you emotion. When you look at the brooch of the Duchess of Windsor, the panther is on the Earth and, like a dragon, she protects it. When you wear a panther ring or bracelet, you feel like you’re protected. It’s a companion and it brings you self-confidence.
What is it like acquiring pieces for the Cartier Collection?
The process is wait, wait, wait and then they come. Things come when they must. Every year we have a divine surprise.
So you believe that the pieces you’re looking for will make themselves known or available in their right time?
Yes, they find their way back home. But it is also better the more they stay with their owner or family so they enjoy it. And we do not keep [new pieces]. It needs to have its own life, to have been chosen and loved. Sometimes they come back after a short period, but they at least need to have their own history before coming back.
Vogue Singapore’s December ‘Gratification’ issue available on newsstands and online.
