Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Cartier, world renowned jeweller is currently exhibiting pieces owned by the likes of Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, and Gloria Swanson is currently on view in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the French jeweller’s first American boutique, which opened on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in 1909. For “Cartier and America,” curator Martin Chapman managed to amass close to 300 jewellery, fashion, and decorative items from the house’s legendary Geneva vault as well as private collections in the US and France, including Grace Kelly’s 10.47-carat emerald-cut engagement ring, Taylor’s ruby-and-diamond abstract suite given by her husband Mike Todd in 1957, and Swanson’s diamond–and–rock crystal bangles that appeared in the movie Sunset Boulevard. Cornelius Vanderbilt III’s diamond-and-platinum pendant brooch, Linda (Mrs. Cole) Porter’s and Daisy Fellowes’s sapphire-emerald-and-ruby “Tutti Frutti” jewels, and a coterie of the company’s great cats—Barbara Hutton’s emerald-eyed tiger ear clips–and–brooch set and the Duchess of Windsor’s diamond-and-onyx panther bracelet—also take their place among Cartier’s greatest hits. (Phew! Must take a breath now)
Some of the show-stoppers or must see pieces: a 1923 pendant brooch of seven carved Indian emeralds—including one from the Mughal era. It belonged to the cereal-fortune heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who has five additional treasures on display, and was worn at the shoulder, the stones cascading from a diamond buckle. Apparently she was a restless jewellery wearer, constantly having things altered, constantly buying things. Her daughter Dina Merrill, the actress, once said that when her mother became ambassadress to the Soviet Union, they must have thought the regime of the czars had returned! Now that is some bling-tastic story to talk about.
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