A Garden of Time: The Art of Cartier

Chapter 14: The Dragon: Prelude to Spring A Garden of Time: The Art of Cartier 🐬This exhibition is one of the special exhibitions celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France. Founded in the 19th century, the luxury brand Cartier has been deeply involved in jewelry, accessories, and watches for many years, drawing on traditional Eastern, especially Chinese, art elements to create pieces that are loved by royalty and the wealthy around the world. 🐬The Silk Road once drove the Roman nobility to pursue silk clothing and products, the Maritime Silk Road made tea drinking fashionable in Britain, becoming a hallmark of the bourgeois lifestyle, and Marco Polo's description of China as a land of gold in his travelogue made the West crazy about China. Ancient Chinese art, such as ceramics, crowns, screens, lacquerware, and carvings, have long been deeply ingrained in the hearts of Westerners. All of these tell the story of the important influence of Eastern culture on Western luxury goods. 🐬Some of the Cartier family's luxury goods come from commissions from major royal families around the world. When it comes to major celebrations such as coronations and weddings, the rich and the nobility often take out their own diamond and gemstone collections and commission Cartier to design and create their favorite jewelry. 🐬Whether visiting special exhibitions in any country, whether Western or Eastern, Chinese or Egyptian or Greek, ancient or modern, or even jade from the Stone Age, high-end luxury goods are the crystallization of the ultimate aesthetics pursued by human civilization. The gemstone necklace from the ancient Egyptian special exhibition, the exquisite phoenix crown from the Ming Dynasty, the dragon-shaped jade pendant from the Hongshan culture of the Stone Age, the exquisite bronze ritual vessels from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the gold and silver vessels and gold masks used by the ancient Greek nobility, and the diamond products of the modern era all show the human pursuit of beauty and the longing for solemn rituals. 🐬Special thanks to: Shanghai Museum, Cartier 🇨🇳Dialogue with world history and explore human civilization