For more than a century, Cartier has adorned kings, queens and maharajas. But at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria this winter, it’s the jeweller’s enduring relationship with Hollywood that steals the spotlight.

Opening as the NGV’s 2026 Winter Masterpieces exhibition, Cartier brings together nearly 400 jewels, watches and precious objects in the largest exhibition ever staged in Australia dedicated to the legendary French maison. Expanded from its acclaimed presentation at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the Melbourne-exclusive exhibition features almost 300 works never before seen in Australia, alongside original design drawings, sketchbooks and archival material that chart Cartier’s evolution from royal jeweller to global cultural icon. 

The exhibition’s most cinematic moment arrives midway through the galleries.

Visitors step past Grace Kelly smiling from the terrace in outtakes from her Monaco tourism film before entering a montage that charts more than seven decades of Hollywood history through Cartier. Gloria Swanson appears in Sunset Boulevard (1950), wearing bracelets now displayed in the exhibition. Grace Kelly returns in High Society (1956), followed by Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby (1974), Michael Douglas in Wall Street (1987), Arsène Lupin (2004), Ocean’s 8 (2018), Angelina Jolie portraying Maria Callas in Maria (2024) and Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme(2025). Together, the sequence illustrates how Cartier became as synonymous with movie stars as it once was with royalty.

“Hollywood became the new royalty,” says Amanda Dunsmore, Senior Curator of International Decorative Arts and Antiquities  at the NGV and curator of the Melbourne presentation.

“Old money had less impact after the war and celebrities and Hollywood stars really came to the fore. It was huge for Cartier.”

The exhibition explores that transition through some of cinema’s most recognisable jewellery.

Among the highlights is the ruby and diamond necklace given to Elizabeth Taylor by her third husband, producer Mike Todd, while holidaying on the French Riviera in 1957. Taylor famously described the piece as being “like the sun – lit up and made of red fire.”

Nearby are jewels worn by Grace Kelly after becoming Princess Grace of Monaco, including an elegant multi-strand pearl and coral necklace and a whimsical gold-and-pearl poodle brooch inspired by her beloved dog, Oliver. 

Hollywood’s relationship with Cartier stretches back almost to the birth of cinema. Rudolph Valentino famously wore his Cartier Tank watch in the 1926 silent classic The Son of the Sheik, despite the watch being historically inaccurate for the period.

“It’s completely out of context chronologically,” Dunsmore laughs. “But he left his watch on.”

The exhibition also reveals how contemporary filmmakers continue to draw on Cartier’s remarkable archive. A spectacular diamond necklace originally created for an Indian maharaja was painstakingly recreated for Ocean’s 8, where it was worn by Anne Hathaway after being resized to fit the actress.

Beyond the Hollywood glamour, the exhibition celebrates Cartier’s extraordinary craftsmanship through iconic tiaras, royal commissions, Art Deco masterpieces and the celebrated Tutti Frutti creations inspired by India. Together, they tell the story of a jewellery house that transformed itself from “the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers” into a cultural symbol recognised far beyond palace walls. 

Running at NGV International until October 4, Cartier is more than an exhibition of spectacular jewels. It is a reminder that while royalty may have built the brand, Hollywood ensured its immortality.