After traversing this vibrant, constantly revised mythology that speaks to today’s world, guests of the Palazzo Nuovo of the Capitoline Museums are invited to immerse themselves in the astonishing universe of the Maison Cartier, which, since its origins, has continuously reinterpreted a living classical antiquity to merge it with modernity and turn it into a myth of light.
The exceptional collection of ancient sculptures of the Capitoline Museums becomes an accomplice witness to this triumph of charm and skilful references to the ancient, made of emeralds, gold, pearls, rubies, diamonds, lapis lazuli, protagonists of the aesthetic and formal universe of the Maison Cartier. Thus, sculptures of magnetic beauty such as the Capitoline Venus, the bust of Medusa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the drunken old woman, to name just a few pieces from the permanent collections of the Palazzo Nuovo in Campidoglio – from the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani – visit the exhibition in ecstasy until March 15 “Cartier and the Myth in the Capitoline Museums”. Also maintaining a dialogue with these unique pieces of the French Maison is a selection of precious artifacts from the Capitoline Superintendence, prestigious Italian and international institutions and private collections. So we find that the myth traces the origin of red coral to the blood of one of the Gorgons, Medusa, beheaded by Perseus.
Stomacher Cartier Paris brooch, made to order, 1907
Each showcase shows the way in which classical antiquity differently inspired Cartier’s most iconic creations, reconstructing intellectual and cultural spheres and evoking the evolution of the imagination associated with Greece and Rome during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An exceptional place is reserved for Rome and the deep bond between Cartier and Italy.
The project, curated by the jewelry historian Bianca Cappello, the archaeologist Stéphane Verger, the Capitoline Superintendent Claudio Parisi Presicce and promoted by Roma Capitale, in collaboration with the Maison Cartier and with the support of Zètema Progetto Cultura, is embellished by the skilful staging of Sylvain Roca, with an extraordinary creative contribution by Maestro Dante Ferretti. Some shop windows challenge the most trained eye to distinguish between past and present, between contemporary jewel and classic model. And this is because, from the mid-19th century to the present day, Cartier has studied, inspired and reinterpreted the aesthetic and symbolic repertoire of ancient Greece and Rome, transforming age-old motifs into jewels of a unique and modern character. While olfactory installations created by the perfumer of the House of Cartier, Mathilde Laurent, enrich the experience, the exhibition explores the mythological inspirations that have fueled the Cartier imagination since the early 20th century, comparing the House’s creations to the ancient gods of Palazzo Nuovo: Aphrodite and Dionysus, Apollo and Heracles, Zeus and Demeter.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the House’s designers gradually moved away from direct references to classical antiquity, following the foundations of geometry and mathematics of the Greek philosophers, based on the principle of the golden ratio. The Greek myths now remain only echoes, ornaments, while the jewels belong to what the Greeks call cosmosa word that denotes the inscrutable order of the universe, but also the correct arrangement of clothing and jewelry themselves. As in ancient myths, jewels in Cartier’s creations become miniature reproductions of the universe and its original forces: the earth and its minerals, the ocean and its sea creatures, the starry sky and the fire of the sun. In the manner of a craftsman, inspired by the evocative power of gemstones, Ephaestus brings these elements together through art. And the jewel becomes a prestigious ornament, a metaphysical discourse, a fragment of a myth in eternity.
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