Cartier exhibition: Dame Nellie Melba’s jewellery on show at NGA
Evidence of Nellie Melba’s love affair with Cartier, the jeweller whose works also adorned royalty, is going on display.
Even set out on a tapestry-covered table, there’s no denying the brilliance of the necklace in front of us. It’s a piece in the “modern” style, from 1902 — the belle epoque, a period known for its opulence, glamour and femininity.
Its perfectly symmetrical form, with tiny flowers and curlicues, is made up of innumerable diamonds, including an enormous one dangling at the base, and three large pearls — at the time these were more expensive than the diamonds, as they were so rare.
What is striking about the piece, aside from those dazzling stones, is its lightness and delicacy. “It’s not a bad bit of kit, is it?” says Lady Vestey (“C” for Celia to her friends), as she puts it on to be photographed in the lounge room at Stowell Park in Gloucestershire, the historic home of Lord and Lady Vestey.
Samuel Vestey, the third Baron Vestey, is the Queen’s Master of the Horse and a member of the Vestey family whose Wave Hill property in the Northern Territory was at the centre of the indigenous land rights movement in Australia in the 1960s and 70s. He is also the great-grandson of Dame Nellie Melba, Australia’s legendary opera singer who wowed (and at times scandalised) Europe, America and beyond from the late 1800s through to her death in Sydney in 1931. The necklace originally belonged to her.
When Cartier: The Exhibition — the largest exhibition of fine jewellery to be staged in this country — opens next week at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, it will include a section devoted to Melba (such was her love for the jewellery house) with the necklace as the centrepiece.
Technically, it is a devant de corsage, or stomacher brooch, which is designed to be pinned to the corsetted bodice of a dress in those days. In the intervening years the diamond-link chain has been shortened, meaning it can now be worn as a necklace, but otherwise it is as commissioned by Melba at the Paris boutique.
It has always remained in Melba’s family, passed down most recently from Lord Vestey’s mother, Pamela, Melba’s only grandchild, to Lady Vestey, his second wife, in 1983, two years after their marriage. (To set the scene, the couple had met at Buckingham Palace at a party the night before Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer; Lady Vestey is godmother to Prince Harry and thrilled about his impending nuptials to Meghan Markle.)
“My mother used to bring things across [from Australia] for Celia,” says Lord Vestey over a roast lamb lunch from the estate, the napkins and tablecloth also from Melba’s possessions and embroidered with her signature NM. “She liked her very much — she didn’t like my first wife at all.”
Independent jewellery dealer Humphrey Butler, who looks after the family’s jewellery, has brought the piece to Gloucestershire from its secure abode in London. The corsage’s next journey, from Britain to Canberra, came about after the Vesteys asked Butler to authenticate it with Cartier.
“They asked would I be able to establish a connection between the piece and Nellie Melba and Cartier, because they had it on strong authority that it was commissioned from Cartier,” says Butler. Even at this stage, there was no doubt in his mind: “The style of the corsage is so typically Cartier, it had to be them.”
Authentication was simple, even though, unusually, the piece was not signed and there was no French maker’s mark. Detailed ledgers have been kept since the company was founded in Paris by Louis-Francois Cartier in 1847. His three grandsons, Louis, Jacques and Pierre, continued this tradition as they set up other ateliers and boutiques in London and New York, in 1902 and 1909 respectively.
The details of the commission were all listed, from the number of stones and pearls included to a sketch of the design. Butler believes it is a wonderful example of the then new use of platinum in jewellery. “I’m mad for the belle epoque period, just prior to art deco, where the great makers were introduced to platinum,” he says. “It’s a fantastically strong metal, but easy to work in, and it left gold way behind. It allowed them to express themselves in a very florid style with the swags and the leaves, it had a naturalistic style. [This piece] has tremendous visual impact, but it is delicate essentially, and I think Cartier are the past masters of this period.”
Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s image, style and heritage director, says the impact of platinum in jewellery making at the turn of the century cannot be underestimated, and further proved the dedication to innovation that the house has always striven for. Its introduction followed Louis Cartier’s arrival in the family business in 1898, when technology was progressing at considerable speed.
“The new lighting was key in jewellery,” says Rainero, because “diamond [pieces] made of silver or gold were unbearable to the eyes under the new electric lights. So that’s why Louis Cartier thought of platinum. You can work with a tiny quantity of metal and still the piece of jewellery will be solid. The metal disappears so it gives space to the stones themselves and can be totally articulated — so even play more with the light. It was a total revolution.”
Melba arrived at Cartier during this jewellery revolution and, as Rainero says of her many visits (she made 137 between 1902 and 1908, despite a busy touring schedule throughout this period), “she probably had a very good relationship with the sales staff”.
While the archives contain only the commercial documents relating to clients, “we do know that [Melba] personally offered her portrait to Pierre Cartier (in 1904) and signed it, so it means that she had a personal relationship with Pierre”. “She bought many different things, not only jewellery, but also objects. Let’s remember that jewellery was part of every part of your life [at that time]. Even the little pin in your hair had to be a piece of jewellery, so there were many opportunities to go to your jeweller.”
This is borne out in the section dedicated to Melba in the NGA show. The objects on display will include an evening clutch bag from 1925, a floral basket pendant watch in diamonds and sapphires from 1909, photos, and a painting of the diva wearing a Cartier diamond necklace and tiara, by Baron Arpad Paszthory.
As Melba’s musical star grew so did her social standing, and she mixed with the highest echelons of society, including royalty, for whom she often performed in Europe. As such, she was dressed by the great couturiers of the day and her jewellery provided the finishing touch to her appearance, as well as serving as a theatrical flourish in performance.
Such was her standing as a Cartier client that the house would often lend her pieces from the London boutique to wear for performances at Covent Garden, and there is anecdotal evidence that she would ask the delivery boy to wear them beneath his clothes so that they would be warm against the skin when she put them on.
The exhibition’s curator, Margaret Young-Sanchez, put together a similar retrospective for the Denver Art Museum in 2015 and subsequently added sections relevant to Australia. She believes Melba, a self-made woman from humble beginnings, would have educated herself about jewellery.
“Most of her early jewellery was probably received as gifts from music lovers, presumably in an assortment of styles,” Young-Sanchez tells Review. “But at Cartier Melba was choosing for herself, and using her jewellery very deliberately to create a public persona. Melba was intelligent and very astute — it would have been unlike her to invest in jewellery without making an effort to learn about style, quality and value.”
Some pieces commissioned by Melba were created around gems given by fans and associates. During a tour of Australia in 1902 she was presented with a pink heart-shaped opal by the musicians of NSW. “She clearly treasured this gift, because she took it to Cartier Paris and commissioned a special brooch, with the opal bordered by diamonds, and dangling from a pair of diamond-studded wings,” says Young-Sanchez. “It must have symbolised the love of Australia lifting her heart.”
An article titled “Madam Melba’s Jewels” in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser from May 1909 describes the brooch as well as the devant de corsage. Of the three pearls in the design, one was a gift from a German banker descended from Mendelssohn, after a performance in Berlin: “The following morning she received a tiny box, and in it was the pearl unset, and when she displayed it there was great excitement in the establishment over its beauty.” The pearl alone was worth £2500.
Melba is quoted as saying in the same article that the central diamond drop “was my very first present … [from] the subscribers of the Theatre [Royal] de la Monnaie” in Brussels. The piece was finished just in time for her performance at the grand coronation concert for Edward VII at London’s Royal Albert Hall, in June 1902, at which she sang the national anthem.
Of course, in exhibitions such as these the question of price always comes up. With a piece such as this there is more to consider than materials alone. “Pieces with history and a story attached have tremendous appeal,” says Butler. “You can feel something that was bedecking someone’s neck 110 years ago. And [Melba] had quite a florid history herself, with her flirtation with the Duc d’Orleans.
“This is the triple whammy — it’s the visual impact, it’s the Cartier attribution, and it’s the historical significance. If I was asked to put a value for sale on a piece like this, in sterling terms, I would put it between £1 million and £1.5m ($1.8m-$2.7m).”
The opera world is still associated with glamour, of course, although today’s divas don’t necessarily spend their hard-earned dollars on extravagant jewellery. One of the beneficiaries of the Dame Nellie Melba Trust, Australian soprano Lauren Fagan, also made the move to London, where she is about to perform one of Melba’s famed roles, Violetta in La Traviata, at Opera Holland Park in May. The singer, raised in Turramurra, Sydney, has worn one of Melba’s pieces before, when performing at Stowell Park last year: a yellow diamond pendant lent to her by Lady Vestey. “Next time I want to sing with this one,” she jokes to Review, putting on the devant de corsage.
On the body, it comes to life, almost jumping off the skin to throw light around the ballroom of the Savile Club in London’s Mayfair. “For me, following in Dame Nellie’s footsteps made this all the more special, because it’s a physical thing that she wore when she was singing, performing,” Fagan says. “That was really special.”
Glynis Traill-Nash travelled to London courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia.
Cartier: The Exhibition opens at the NGA on Friday and runs until July 22.