Cancelled:Cartier&Marjorie M. Post's Dazzling Gems: Exclusive Curator's Tour for Harvard Club
Liana Paredes, the Curator of this exhibition at the Hillwood Museum, will guide this tour exclusively for our Club. The tour will take around 40 minutes, and then you are free to explore the beautiful museum, estate, and gardens of Hillwood on your own.
One of Cartier’s most important and enduring clients, Marjorie Merriweather Post commissioned some of the most exquisite jewelry sets, fashionable accessories, and finely-crafted jeweled frames of any American collector. Following their return from the Grand Palais where they dazzled in the exhibition Cartier: Le Style et L’Historie, jewelry and objects from Hillwood’s Cartier collection will offer a notable perspective on the important role that Cartier played in the life and style of this American icon.
$35 members and their guests
The Relationship
Marjorie Merriweather Post frequented the Cartier firm’s three establishments from the 1920s through the 1960s. Pierre Cartier, the brother with whom she dealt most directly, shared an interest in Russian imperial art and even sold Post her first piece of Fabergé. Post and Cartier collaborated in designing jewelry and accessories for many years, developing and refining her personal style while creating exquisite works of art. Sketches from the Cartier archives throughout the exhibition illustrate this fruitful partnership.
The Jewelry
An exotic brooch made of seven carved Indian emeralds (considered to be one Cartier’s finest creations), a glittering diamond-and-sapphire necklace, and other impressive pieces collected in times of war and peace, prosperity, and depression, show the changing styles and enduring quality of Marjorie Post and Cartier’s relationship. Situated among paintings, photos, and attire, each piece is contextualized within the Post’s life and times.
Frames and Accessories
In addition to buying their latest jewelry designs, Marjorie Post patronized Cartier by purchasing an array of jeweled objets d’art. In the 1920s and 30s, she commissioned a number of picture frames for family photographs, paying attention to the materials and colors in order to enhance each portrait. Other personal luxury items, including a silver-and-enamel dressing table set and a beaded-and-platinum evening bag as well as glamorous portraits, paintings, and historic photos and correspondence, illustrate Post’s enduring use of Cartier to contribute to her persona.
Biography: Liana Paredes
Liana Paredes holds an MA in Art History from the Complutense University in Madrid. The ensuing studies at the Sotheby’s institute in London oriented her curatorial career towards the decorative arts. In the late 1980s Ms. Paredes worked at the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in its European Decorative Arts Department.
Since 1991, Ms. Paredes has been at Hillwood State, Museum & Gardens, where she is now Director of Collections & Chief Curator. With Anne Odom, she was co-curator and co-author of the scholarly catalogue, A Taste for Splendor, which features the most important works of art of Hillwood’s collection. She has lectured and published extensively in the field of French decorative arts, decorative interiors, and jewelry. She is author of Sèvres at Hillwood as well as French Furniture in the Collection of Hillwood Museum & Gardens. In Paris on the Potomac (2007), Liana published her research on the subject of French influences on architectural interiors in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Pareded was the organizing curator of the Sèvres Then & Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain, 1750-2000 and the accompanying catalogue. Her latest exhibition project, Prêt-à-Papier: The Exquisite Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave, marks the first contemporary initiative for the museum.
Refunds of any kind are no longer possible. If you find that you can not attend an event, please find a substitute or consider all fees paid as a charitable donation to the Harvard Club of Washington, DC. Your cooperation in this regard would be appreciated.