The National Gallery of Victoria has announced that a major exhibition featuring jewelry from the renowned French fashion house Cartier will open in Melbourne in 2026. The blockbuster show, which originally premiered at London's Victoria & Albert Museum earlier this year, promises to be the largest exhibition of Cartier pieces ever staged in Australia.

The exhibition will showcase more than a century of historic jewelry items, including pieces associated with aristocratic figures and pop culture icons ranging from Princess Margaret and Wallis Simpson to Elizabeth Taylor and Rihanna. Among the standout pieces will be a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas from June 1958, courtesy of Photofest and the NGV.

In an Australian exclusive, the NGV's version of the exhibition will feature jewelry worn by opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, who was a major client of Cartier at the turn of the century. The show will also include a range of jewelry made with Australian opals, adding a local connection to the international display.

Amanda Dunsmore, the NGV's senior curator for international decorative arts and antiquities, explained the historical significance of the Melba pieces. "The Melba pieces represent a moment when Cartier was really gaining in international significance," Dunsmore said. She noted that these pieces reflect key shifts in design, including the incorporation of platinum into settings and the evolution of Cartier's Garland style, which took cues from Parisian architecture.

The exhibition, designed by Netherlands-based designers Studio Sabine Marcelis and CLOUD, will examine multiple aspects of Cartier's legacy. Visitors will explore the brand's art deco influences, its design evolution across the last century, the materials used in the pieces and their provenance, as well as behind-the-scenes material from the Cartier archives.

Several extraordinary pieces will be featured prominently in the display. These include a tiara owned by Begum Aga Khan III, which features a 32-carat yellow diamond at its center, and a Panther sapphire clip brooch worn by the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, which contains a 152-carat Kashmir cabochon sapphire.

Dunsmore particularly highlighted the Granard necklace, owned by Lady Beatrice Forbes, Countess of Granard, as exemplifying Cartier style. The necklace features a 143.23-carat emerald and represents what Dunsmore calls "quite an intense design" that "speaks to a level of glamour and sophistication."

Helen Molesworth, the curator of the London iteration of the exhibition, emphasized the deeper cultural significance of jewelry beyond mere luxury. "It's not just bling," says Molesworth. "We learn about ourselves from jewelry. It tells us about trade and travel, about romance and love, about politics and propaganda, about finance and fashion. You can learn so much from understanding how jewelry is made, why, and where."

The house of Cartier was established in Paris in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier. However, it wasn't until the 1920s that the business was established as a global brand by his grandsons, Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier. Today, Cartier has grown into a multi-billion dollar brand with worldwide recognition.

Both Molesworth and Dunsmore consider the exhibition's crowning achievement to be a dedicated room of tiaras. "The tiara is the crowning moment of the jeweler's art," says Molesworth. "They tell us a lot about society and how it's changed over the 20th century, but also about these different artistic, brilliant styles that we had seen from the 1900s to the present day. The tiara room is going to blow people away."

The Cartier exhibition represents the latest installment in the Winter Masterpieces exhibition series across the NGV, Melbourne Museum and ACMI. The Victorian government announced last week that this series has drawn 8 million visitors to date, demonstrating the strong public appetite for major cultural exhibitions in Melbourne.

The Cartier exhibition will run at NGV International from June 12 to October 4, 2026, giving visitors an extended opportunity to experience this comprehensive survey of one of the world's most prestigious jewelry houses.