CARTIER IN THE KREMLIN

From May 25 through August 25, 2007, Moscow hosts an exhibition of historical jewellery by the famous French company Cartier, which is on display at the Assumption Cathedral of Moscow’s Kremlin.

This is the first large-scale display of the famous jewellery, which became the company’s brand and to some extent a pattern for jewellery of the 20th century.Among the items on display, there is festoon-type jewellery, which creates a bright and easily recognised image of Cartier jewellery; art deco items; charming and picturesque Tutti Frutti samples; “flora and fauna” pieces; and quite a memorial exhibit – the sword of famous poet Jean Cocteau, made in 1955 after his own design.Before WWI Pierre Cartier, the founder of the house, went to Russia twice, in 1904 and 1905, and had permanent customers there, such as Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the wife of Grand Duke Vladimir, the son of Alexander II; and Princess Paley. Widowed Empress Maria Fyodorovna used to visit Louis Cartier’s atelier in Rue de la Paix in Paris. Following her advice a Cartier exhibition was held in St Petersburg in 1907.In an interview with the popular daily Kommersant, Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s strategy and heritage director, said the exhibits had been chosen by Kremlin museum experts themselves.“Our partners from the Kremlin museums wanted to exhibit styles that were unknown, or little known, in the Soviet Union,” he said. “They selected the most important and creative things from every period, which influenced the history of art. This gave the exhibition its name, 20th Century Innovation. They chose many art deco decorations, believing that Russians have not seen much of the period, as nobody could conceive of either Cartier or art deco in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s.”