Cartier

A major Cartier retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, running from April to November 2025. The exhibition brought together more than 350 objects, including jewels, historic gemstones, watches, and clocks, charting the evolution of Cartier's legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the twentieth century.

The exhibition was curated by Helen Molesworth, senior curator of jewellery at the V&A. It drew on pieces from the Cartier Collection, the V&A's own holdings, and international loans to present the broadest survey of Cartier's output mounted in London since the Rudoe retrospective at the British Museum in 1997.

Notable Pieces

Among the objects displayed: the rose clip brooch owned by Princess Margaret (1938, Cartier London); the Panthère clip brooch sold to the Duke of Windsor (1949, Cartier Paris); the Mountbatten Bandeau (1928, Cartier London); the Manchester Tiara (1903, Cartier Paris); the Crash wristwatch (1967, Cartier London); a Model A Mystery Clock (1914, Cartier Paris); and the necklace commissioned for the Maharaja of Patiala (1928, Cartier Paris).

Reception

The Telegraph gave the exhibition five stars, calling it "a spellbinding, once-in-a-lifetime display of old-world glamour."