Two hundred years ago, Napoleon, frustrat-ed by his failure to conquer Moscow, ordered his retreating troops to destroy the magnificent 16th Century Ivan the Great Bell Tower, in the Kremlin. The 81 metre bell tower took the pounding but suffered little damage. The French emperor’s troops however did manage to destroy parts of the adjacent Assumption Cathedral, which was quickly rebuilt. Modern-day historians would see the irony in the fact that these days another French institution, which is probably as well known and even better loved, around the world, has laid siege on the minds of the discerning Muscovites through an exhibition in these two very historic buildings. Located across the walls from the famous Red Square and the iconic multi-domed St Basil’s Cathedral, and within walking distance from where Vladmir Putin rules Russia, Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Belfry of the Assumption Cathedral, which are now part of a complex called Moscow Kremlin Museums, are currently playing host to an eye-popping jewellery exhibition mounted by Cartier, the revered Parisian jewellery and watchmaker.

The official opening of the three-month long exhibition, on May 23rd, in fact featured a performance by the Presidential Orchestra and a parade of the Foot and Mounted Guards of the Presidential Regiment. Cartier, whose relations with Russia, goes back to over a hundred years to the time of the Tsars, thus became the first jewellery house to be invited to exhibit inside the hallowed portals of the Russian government, where for the first 40 years of communist rule, even ordinary Russians were not allowed in. And befitting this privilege, Cartier has put up a show that is dazzling, to say the least. On show are 165 of some of the greatest pieces of jewellery, watches and accessories that were ever created. Titled, ‘Cartier, Innovation Through The 20th Century’, the exhibition is a sumptuous journey through Cartier’s glittering history of jewellery making, a testimony to the sublime creativity, pioneering innovation and unparalleled craftsmanship of its founders, who in the words of King Edward VII , were “jewellers to kings, and king of jewellers”. As Elena Gagarina, General Director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums stated at the opening, “Cartier can claim all the most important innovations and achievements which belong to the jewellery art of the 20th century. That is why we decided to show this exhibit here in the Kremlin, in the place where we keep plenty of ancient jewellery art treasures.”

The pieces on show represent the entire gamut of Cartier’s stylistic periods – from the garland style to the Art Deco; from the Indian-influenced Tutti Frutti designs of the 1920s to the white Art Deco of the 1930s and the yellow gold of the 1940s; from the vast range of men’s and women’s accessories to the flora and fauna influenced jewellery pieces of the 1950s and 60s. In the words of Pascale Milhaud, curator of the Cartier Collection, the exhibition brings out three unifying features of the ‘Cartier Style’: “…the primordial importance of design…next, design must be served by a technical virtuosity that constantly seeks to transcend itself, because that is what distinguishes a fine creative jeweller from a simple jewel merchant. Finally every creation by the House of Cartier displays balance and harmony. From a stomacher brooch to a mystery clock via a Tank watch – everything hinges on finely balanced proportions and harmonious colours.”

Milhaud and his colleagues spent two years curating the Moscow exhibition, sifting through the historic pieces ‘one by one’, in his words, from the 1,300 items that now form part of the Cartier Collection, and are stored in bank vaults in Europe. The collection itself was started in 1973 by Robert Hocq, the then president of Cartier, and the man who was responsible for unifying the three Cartier branches in Paris, London and New York, which had gone their own ways after the death of Pierre, Louis and Jacques Cartier, the three grandsons of the founder Louis-Francois Cartier. In 1973 Hocq bought back, at an auction in Geneva, the first of the six ‘Portique’ mysterious pendulum clocks, made in 1923. This started the Cartier Collection, and since then the jeweller has rarely missed an opportunity to buy back old creations which have been up for sale anywhere in the world.

The 1,300 pieces don’t sit in any permanent museum, but pieces from it are periodically exhibited around the world, with items chosen around a particular theme. The first showing was at Paris’s Petit Palais in 1989, followed by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg in 1992, and then in Tokyo, London, New York and several other cities. Says Patrick Normand, Cartier’s Managing Director of the Middle East and South Asia, “Cartier is usually invited by the most prestigious museums to exhibit the Cartier Collection in the major capitals of the world and we can host only two exhibits per year. In 15 years Cartier has organised expositions in London, New York, Tokyo, Mexico, Berlin, Shanghai and many other cities. The theme and criteria depends on different factors. One way is by choosing the pieces that would be best suited for the theme of the museum itself. The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, for example, is known for exhibiting early American artefacts. So Cartier chose early American treasures dated from the end of the 20th century featuring decorative arts and jewellery. Each piece was chosen based on its significance and its history based on that theme.

The Moscow exhibition is breathtaking in its sweep. You can see, for example, the two Fern Spray brooches made in platinum with round old-cut diamonds created in 1903 for Lady Edwina Mountbatten, while the Panther pattern watch-brooch created in platinum and diamond for Pierre Cartier himself in 1915, a 1920 Tank wristwatch made in platinum, gold and sapphire cabochon and worn by the likes of Rudolf Valentino, the famous Mystery Clock of 1914 made in gold, platinum, diamonds, sapphire, agate and rock crystal and which gets its name from the fact that their platinum and diamond-set hands do not seem to be linked to any mechanical movement, the hands simply float in the midst of transparent rock crystal; a variety of cigarette cases and vanity cases, belt buckles, bracelets, powder boxes, necklaces, one of the 27 tiaras studded with diamonds and aquamarines that were made for the British royal family on the occasion of the coronation of King George VI in 1937, Barbara Hutton’s diamond-studded comb, Begum Aga Khan’s Tiara, Jean Cocteau’s famous Academic Sword made for him in steel, ivory, gold and silver and embellished with emeralds, rubies, diamonds and onyx; ‘The fantastic jewels’ of Maria Félix, the diva of Mexican cinema in the 1960s. The actress who starred in the likes of Jean Renoir’s French Cancan and Luis Bunel’s Fever Rises in El Pao, was obsessed with making jewellery shaped in the form of reptiles. So there is the 22-inch long Snake necklace that was made from platinum, gold and diamond, in 1968. In 1975, she turned up at the Cartier salon in Paris carrying two baby crocodiles, demanding that the jeweller make a necklace that looked like them. The ever obliging jeweller created something that is truly spectacular. Made from gold, the two crocodiles among them feature 1,023 diamonds and 1,060 emeralds. Félix had the privilege of wearing them individually as brooches or as one necklace, with the two crocodiles clasped together.

But the pièce de résistance of the exhibition is the ceremonial necklace of the supremely vain Maharajah Sir Bhupindra Singh of Patiala. Considered by many to be the greatest necklace that was ever created, its origins lay in the Maharajah’s decision in 1926 to hand over a trunk full of precious stones and jewels to Cartier to have them mounted in a necklace made in the Parisian style. And what the jewellery house created for him was truly stunning, worthy of all the tales of the Maharajas and their lavish lifestyles. The necklace consisted of five magnificent platinum and diamond-set chains in the Art Deco style. In the centre was a cascade of seven large diamonds of 18 to 73 carats in weight, surmounting a pendant whose centrepiece was the celebrated De Beers diamond, a yellow stone of 234.69 carats, which was at its time among the biggest diamonds in the world and had been bought by Bhupindra’s father 30 years earlier in South Africa. A tobacco-coloured diamond of 18 carats and two rubies with a total weight of 29.58 carats provided colour to the otherwise immaculate white of the piece.

The finished garland featured 2,930 diamonds weighing a total of 962.25 carats. A British journalist, Rosita Forbes, who saw it in the Patiala armoury in 1938, has been quoted in the book Maharajah’s Jewels by Katherine Prior and John Adamson as saying: “When I tried it on, it covered half my person with streams and lakes of diamonds.”

No one knows when or how the necklace left India, but it is widely known that Bhupindra’s obsession for jewellery virtually bankrupted him. In 1998, the famous necklace was discovered in a London antique shop, albeit in a poor condition. All that remained were the five platinum and diamond-set Art Deco chains. The diamonds had vanished. Cartier bought back the chains and painstakingly rebuilt it using substitutes to recreate its brilliance and sparkle. Cubic zirconium was used for diamonds and synthetic rubies whose colour is the nearest possible match to the original Burmese gems. According to the lavish catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, Cartier has ‘used every possibility to recreate the necklace’s original beauty until, one by one, the synthetic stones can be replaced by natural stones.’ It also goes on to add that ‘the restoration of the necklace has been entirely organised and financed by Cartier. The descendents of the Maharajah and their families are in no way associated with this restoration or any presentation of the necklace at any exhibition.’

India has a prominent presence at the exhibition, beyond the famous necklace. There is a whole range of necklaces, bracelets and brooches made from Indian traditional stones of the 19th century, engraved with flowers and leaves, which came to be known as the ‘Tutti Frutti’ style of jewellery in the 1930s. Among its early patrons at Cartier included the likes of the wife of the big American composer Cole Porte and the women of the Vanderbilt clan. Another striking Indian-style creation at the exhibition is a 29-inch emerald sautoir, or chain, made up of one carved hexagonal 85 carat emerald, 50 fluted emerald beads weighing 517 carats and lined with diamonds and natural pearls. ‘India certainly had the strongest influence on Cartier jewellery,’ Pascale Milhaud says in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue.

Cartier’s love affair with the country started in 1901, soon after Queen Victoria’s death when the new British Queen, Alexandra commissioned the jeweller to design an Indian-style necklace to suit dresses made from Indian fabrics that had been presented to her by Lady Curzon, whose husband was the Viceroy of India. This led to Cartier setting up shop in London, which was soon being frequented by the Maharajahs. The affair was finally sealed in 1911, when Jacques Cartier undertook an exploratory visit to India. According to Prior & Adamson, “Laden with watches, carriage clocks and small items of platinum-set jewellery such as brooches and combs, he criss-crossed the subcontinent, forging potentially golden links with, among others, the rulers of Baroda, Hyderabad, Kapurthala, Nawanagar, and Rampur. After the First World War, other Western jewellery houses were to follow in Cartier’s footsteps, among them Boucheron, Mauboussin, Van Cleef & Arpels and Harry Winston, but Jacques Cartier’s pioneering voyage ensured that it was his firm which got the lion’s share of the prince’s foreign commission.”

Thus considering such close linkages, it is likely that a large number of other Indian pieces probably do exist in the Cartier Collection. So would Cartier consider having one of its prestigious exhibitions in India? “Why not,” says Patrick Normand, who oversees the company’s India operations from Dubai, and has lived in Mumbai in his earlier job. “That would be a very exciting opportunity for us. It would create an amazing display for our Cartier admirers in India and of course demonstrate the relationship between Jacques Cartier and the Maharajahs. Exceptional creations were done by Cartier for the great rulers of India and it will be fantastic to show those treasures in India again.” A location with adequate security would be of primary importance for the exhibition. Even if it is not a fortress like the Kremlin, the place would still have to be one where these jewels that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars can be exhibited safely. If there are any suggestions, Cartier would be willing to listen.