FALL OF POWERS, RISE OF MAISON CARTIER

BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL

Above: Tiara, Cartier London, special order, 1936, platinum, diamonds, turquoise. Sold to The Honorable Robert Henry Brand. Cartier Collection. Vincent Wulveryck, Collection Cartier © Cartier; Below: Bracelet, Cartier Paris, 1923, platinum, diamonds. Cartier Collection. Vincent Wulveryck, Collection Cartier © Cartier.

When Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity opens at the Dallas Museum of Art in May, it will offer an intensely scholarly look, as well as lots of sparkle, into a particular moment that helped define Maison Cartier. “For the first time, the exhibition shows that jewelry, far from being a simple accessory of the costume, as some want to limit it, can be the subject of art history studies in the same way as other artistic creations, such as painting, sculpture, or decorative arts in general,” says Évelyne

Possémé, chief curator of ancient and modern jewelry at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

This internationally conceived exhibition was co-organized by the DMA, its only North American venue, and Musée des Arts

Décoratifs, in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and with the support of Maison Cartier. With loans from several international collections, this major exhibition features over 400 objects, including from the Keir Collection of Islamic Art, on loan to the DMA. “Only about a one-quarter to one-third of the exhibition is jewelry. We

Above: Vanity case, Cartier Paris, 1924, gold, platinum, parquetry of mother-of-pearl and turquoise, emeralds, pearls, diamonds, black and cream enamel. Cartier Collection. Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection © Cartier; Below: Mamluk Carpet Fragment (detail), 15th–16th century, wool. The Keir Collection of Islamic Art, on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art.

Clockwise from left: Bandeau, Cartier Paris, 1922, platinum, gold, round old-, single-, and rose-cut diamonds, coral beads and batons, onyx rondelles and batons, tortoiseshell, black enamel. Nils Herrmann, Collection Cartier © Cartier; Ewer, late 10th–early 11th century, rock crystal with enameled gold repairs and fittings by Jean-Valentin Morel (1794-1860), French, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art, on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art; Female tumbler, Iran, early 19th century, The Hossein Afshar Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Photograph by Will Michels.

Clockwise from left: “Persian” cigarette case, Medallion: India, 18th–19th century. Cartier Paris for London, 1926, gold, agate, lapis lazuli, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, enamel. Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection © Cartier; Bib necklace, Cartier Paris, special order, 1947, twisted 18-karat and 20-karat gold, platinum, brilliant- and baguette-cut diamonds, one heart-shaped faceted amethyst, twenty-seven emeraldcut amethysts, one oval faceted amethyst, turquoise cabochons. Nils Herrmann, Collection Cartier © Cartier; “Persian” cigarette case, Cartier Paris, 1924, gold, enamel, onyx. Cartier Collection. Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection © Cartier.

are building a narrative of looking back at things Louis Cartier is collecting,” states Sarah Schleuning, the Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the DMA. Also included will be the Persian, Indian, and Islamic paintings, manuscripts, rugs, and objects that inspired Cartier’s creations.

In the mid-19th century, “Orientalism,” as it was traditionally known, captivated European audiences with the perceived exoticism of the East. Politically, as governments across the Levant weakened, European countries vied for colonial dominance. The dissolution of these empires resulted in a flood of cultural treasures into Europe. “Everything became available with the fall of powers. Paris became the center of the Islamic art market,” explains Dr. Heather Ecker, the former Marguerite S. Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Art at the DMA. She and Schleuning comprised the local curatorial team.

Also in Paris, the third generation of Cartier sons—Louis, Jacques, and Pierre—catapulted the family business, founded by their grandfather in 1847, to international renown. According to Judith Henon-Raynaud, curator and deputy director of the department of Islamic art at the Louvre, “It was the arrival of Louis Cartier in 1898 as artistic director of the Paris branch that transformed the family business of jewelry creation and resale. After the relocation of the company to rue de la Paix, he equipped it with a designers’ workshop that would give birth to the Cartier style.”

As the new century dawned, several seminal exhibitions brought widespread attention to Islamic art. In 1903, Exposition des art musulmans was curated by Gaston Migeon in Paris. Two years later, according to Henon-Raynaud, Migeon “inaugurated a room entirely dedicated to Muslim art. It is this room that is truly considered the first devoted to Islamic art in the Louvre, even though earlier collections of Islamic art were presented in the museum, but mixed with Western works.” Henon-Raynaud and Possémé served as the exhibition’s Parisian curatorial team.

In 1910, Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art opened in Munich,

Bazuband upper arm bracelet, Cartier Paris for Cartier London, special order, 1922, platinum, old-cut diamonds. Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection © Cartier.

Tiara, Cartier Paris, special order, 1912, platinum, round old- and rose-cut diamonds, pear-shaped diamonds, carved rock crystal, millegrain setting. Marian Gérard, Collection Cartier © Cartier.

Bandeau, Cartier Paris, 1923. Platinum, diamonds. Made as a special order for Madame Ossa Ross. Cartier Collection. Vincent Wulveryck, Collection Cartier © Cartier.

featuring over 3,500 objects from public and private collections. The exhibition was a sensation. Visitors from across Europe, including Louis Cartier, flocked to see it.

Inspired by what he saw, over the ensuing decades, Louis amassed an enviable collection of Islamic art. His collection also included Chinese and Japanese art as well as 18th-century furniture. By the time the Musée des Arts Décoratifs mounted an exhibition of Persian miniatures in 1912, Louis was a lender. Upon his death, his massive collection was dispersed. Much of it is now being reunited for the first time in over 75 years.

Before long, Louis translated these Eastern-inspired styles into his designs. Antithetical to the languid lines of art nouveau, they soon became one of the defining elements of Cartier’s work. “The inspirations that Louis drew from Islamic art and particularly geometric shapes, which had not existed in jewelry until then, brought the company into the modern era, initiating the beginnings of art deco,” says Henon-Reynaud.

Louis also began to use materials in a new way. “Using platinum was a Cartier innovation. It is light, strong, doesn’t tarnish, and works well with diamonds,” Ecker explains. His study of Indian jewelry also led him, she adds, to create jewelry that was jointed and hinged. In addition, Ecker says, “Cartier produced color combinations that were radical.” The combination of blue and green, for example, ultimately became part the house’s signature Tutti Frutti design. Other signature Cartier motifs, such as the panther, can be attributed to Jeanne Toussaint, who became Cartier’s director of fine jewelry in 1933.

Leading the London operation, Jacques made his first of many trips to India in 1911. According to Possémé, “India was one of the most important producers of precious stones at the time, so it seems normal that jewelers were present there with an office, or even a simple correspondent, to ensure the exchange and shipment of precious stones.”

The exhibition also delves deeply into graphic arts. “Pattern books provided dissemination of possibilities and opportunities,” says Schleuning. The influence of these as well as Eastern manuscripts cannot be underestimated. As Ecker notes, “The transmission [of ideas] wasn’t from traveling to the Middle East, it was through the mediation of books, which were everywhere.” Similarly, Maison Cartier created its own graphic tradition, even with quotidian objects such as playing cards. These were designed and sold in the New York house, led by Pierre.

At the DMA, the installation has been conceived by the New York–based design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro. “DSR has been such a great partner and has brought such interesting ideas,” offers Schleuning. She adds that devised to invite closer looking, the installation will provide a layered experience.

Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity belongs to a long history of exhibitions devoted to Maison Cartier. But seeing it through a contemporary lens is of particular interest to Schleuning, who is intrigued, she says, by “what inspires people and how they recombine these ideas.” If the exhibition’s success in Paris is any indicator, it will not only inspire but will also dazzle audiences on this side of the Atlantic. P

Flask, c. 1025, rock crystal, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art, on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art.

Head ornament, Cartier New York, circa 1924, platinum, white gold, pink gold, one 4.01-carat pear-shaped diamond, five briolette-cut diamonds weighing 5.22 carats in total, round old-, single- and rose-cut diamonds, feathers, millegrain setting. Marian Gérard, Collection Cartier © Cartier.