Blurred Lines

Through a partnership fi ve years in the making, Cartier and Beijing’s Palace Museum unveiled its Beyond Boundaries exhibition —a three-part extravaganza focused on cultural conservation, exchange and dialogue between the East and West

- Lily Ong

After 35 years of working with Cartier, you would think that Pierre Rainero would be (if you excuse me for the pun) jaded after viewing gemstones on a day-to-basis. On the contrary, Pierre reveals that he still feels frissons of delight at every piece of beautiful jewellery he beholds. He relishes in the joy of ensuring Cartier’s continuity of style through marrying the past, present and future in its visual arts and presentation. Cartier boasts over a century’s track record in creating objet d’arts for the world’s richest and most influential figures.

“I studied history of arts and I am surprised that most universities don’t consider jewellery as a method of artistic expression. There’s so much that a piece of jewellery can inform us about its owner’s culture, lifestyle and beliefs,” says the bespectacled image, style and heritage director incredulously.

Aligned with this, Cartier has worked with leading museums around the world to educate the public about the role of jewellery as a historical artifact. This includes the People’s Republic of China’s Palace Museum, situated in the historical Forbidden City, Beijing.

Although Cartier’s relationship with China officially started in the 1990s, oriental influences have always been evident in the brand’s collections dating back to the 1870s. Their contemporary ties were strengthened through multiple exhibitions around the country, including ‘Cartier Treasures— King of Jewellers, Jeweller to Kings,’ at the Meridian Gate Gallery in 2009.

And yet another significant partnership between Cartier and Palace Museum occurred between 2014 and 2017. Both parties worked together to restore six timepieces of English origin from the Palace Museum’s collections at the Cartier Manufacture production facilities in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.