Eric Nussbaum (1940–2003) joined Cartier in 1969, opening the Geneva boutique. In 1983 he was appointed to build what became the Cartier Collection: an institutional holding of outstanding vintage pieces assembled as a record of the firm's historical production and as a resource for research and exhibition. By the time of his death it exceeded 1,200 objects. The collection was exhibited at the Hermitage, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum, among other major institutions.
Nussbaum worked from inside the firm's historical record rather than from the secondary market or the auction rooms. His position gave him access to provenance information and archival material that independent scholars could not easily reach.
Publications
In 1988 he wrote the foreword to The Cartier Museum at the Goldsmiths' Hall, the catalogue accompanying the Cartier Collection's first major exhibition in Britain, held at Goldsmiths' Hall in London from 23 May to 10 June of that year.
In 1989, alongside Hans Nadelhoffer and Harry Fane, he contributed to Reflections of Elegance: Cartier Jewels from the Lindemann Collection, the New Orleans Museum of Art catalogue documenting a major private American collection of Cartier jewels and objects. The three authors represented distinct types of expertise: Nadelhoffer as the leading independent scholar, Nussbaum as institutional curator, and Fane as the principal private dealer in the field.
With Franco Cologni he co-authored Cartier: Le Joaillier du Platine (1995), published in English as Platinum by Cartier. With Cologni he also co-authored Cartier Collection: Jewelry (Flammarion, 2004), a systematic catalogue of the collection he had built.
Nussbaum died in 2003.
Sources
- Worldtempus obituary for Eric Nussbaum (2003)
- Reflections of Elegance: Cartier Jewels from the Lindemann Collection (New Orleans Museum of Art, 1989; ISBN 0894940295)
- Franco Cologni and Eric Nussbaum, Platinum by Cartier (Harry N. Abrams, 1995)
- Franco Cologni and Eric Nussbaum, Cartier Collection: Jewelry (Flammarion, 2004)
