Jean Schlumberger: Emboldened by Nature
When Jean Schlumberger created his first collection for Tiffany & Company in the mid-1950s, he used diamonds and platinum, deeming them the appropriate choice for his new employer, rather than his customary explosion of colored gems, enamel and yellow gold.
73421 - Schlumberger Tiffany Platinum Gold Diamond 36-Stone Bracelet
But Walter Hoving, Tiffany’s chairman, and the man who had hired Schlumberger, told him that while the collection was beautiful, the designer should go back to doing what he did best. It proved to be the right decision. Jean Schlumberger’s considerable imagination, unrestrained and combined with Tiffany’s incredible gem vault, deep pockets, and his team of skilled craftsmen, was able to insure that Tiffany enjoyed a much-needed creative boost.
24047 - Schlumberger Tiffany Circa 1971 Gold Platinum Diamond Pin
Walter Hoving and “Tiffany were geniuses to pick him up,” said Frank Everett, (sales director of Sotheby’s New York jewelry department). “They made him and he made them.” Jean Schlumberger was born in Mulhouse, France into a wealthy textile family. His family sent him to Berlin in 1930 to pursue a career in banking. The next year, ignoring the wishes of his family, a defiant Schlumberger left for Paris to pursue artistic endeavors. Paris was a hothouse of creativity and a charismatic Jean Schlumberger, fit right in with the avant-garde fashion and art crowd.
53587 - Schlumberger Tiffany Circa 1999 Platinum Gold Turquoise Diamond Earrings
With his love of drawing, combined with scouring the Paris flea markets for interesting and affordable materials, he developed an eye for creating unique and artistic designs, which he fashioned into fanciful buttons and costume jewelry. By 1937, couturier Elsa Schiaperelli had discovered Schlumberger, and commissioned him to create pieces for her collections. The collaboration was a huge success, with women on both sides of the Atlantic, wearing his playful creations, but with the outbreak of World War II, Schlumberger joined the army.
61100 - Schlumberger Tiffany Watch
Schlumberger enlisted in the French army, under General Charles de Gaulle and was evacuated at Dunkirk. The war had ended and Jean yearned to return to a world of beauty and creativity. Schlumberger moved to New York City, and worked briefly as a fashion designer before crossing paths with a childhood friend, Nicolas Bongard. Bongard became the link between Schlumberger and the skilled jewelers who were capable of creating his designs. (Bongard, whose uncle was the famed fashion designer Paul Poirot, had worked for another uncle, the famed jeweler, Reve Boivin and later for the house of Lacloche.) In 1947 the pair opened a jewelry salon. With Nicolas handling the business affairs, Schlumberger was free to design.
James Taffin de Givenchy, said it was Mr. Schlumberger, together with another European émigré, Fulco di Verdura, who left European jewelry-making conventions behind to usher in a new age for American jewelry. “They gave identity to a postwar whimsical, irreverent style,” later espoused by the likes of David Webb.
53780 - Schlumberger Tiffany Diamond Earrings
“First and foremost, Jean Schlumberger was an artist,” says Angelina Chen, jewelry specialist at Christie’s in New York. “His background in craft and fashion set him up to be a trailblazer in the world of fine jewels.” His playful creations, particularly of jeweled animals and fantastical sea creatures were worn by leading ladies of fashion and society. Schlumberger became the designer of choice for such glamorous women as Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Diana Vreeland (legendary editor of Vogue) and, Bunny Mellon (philanthropist & designer of the White House Rose Garden). It was not long after he had abandoned war-torn Paris in 1946 in pursuit of new opportunities in New York that he first met Bunny Mellon.
72749 - Schlumberger Tiffany Circa 1976 Gold Link Bracelet
The relationship between Mrs. Mellon and Mr. Schlumberger actually had a life beyond their shared love of flowers, and her own jewelry commissions. Mrs. Mellon would describe how she and the designer collaborated on the first of his famous pailloné enamel bracelets. Schlumberger brought back the 19th century art of paillonné enamel, a process of achieving translucent colors by laying enamel over 18k gold leaf. Schlumberger gave a blue Croisillon bracelet to Bunny Mellon, which she wore every day. She, in turn, gave a version of the bracelet to Jacqueline Kennedy when she and President Kennedy were in the White House. Mrs. Kennedy wore them so frequently the press called them “Jackie’s bracelets.”
72613 - Schlumberger DOT LOSANGE Circa 1965 French Bangle
These magnificent enamel bracelets, in vivid red, blue and green spiked with gold, became the signature accessory of every stylish woman's wardrobe. To date these remain one of his most iconic creations. Diana Vreeland wrote the introduction to Schlumberger’s 1976 book Jean Schlumberger: Bijoux. In it she describes his Croisillon gold and enamel bracelets, “He likes to stab enamel with nails of gold”
52936 - Schlumberger Tiffany Gold Enamel French BANANA Earrings
“It’s very complicated,” Jean Schlumberger once said to a reporter. “I make jewels, but I hate modern jewelry — and I can’t tell people I make antique jewels!”
By 1955, Tiffany's fortunes had declined to a postwar low. The white knight who rode in to save the store, was Walter Hoving. Hoving was the former head of the company that controlled Tiffany's next-door neighbor, Bonwit Teller. Hoving's first move in 1955 as chairman was to hold a "white elephant" sale to clean out merchandise that had languished on the shelves for years. But Hoving saw another problem--the store's merchandise had no direction. John Loring (Tiffany’s design director for over 20 years) says, "Hoving looked back and saw that name designers were part of that great Tiffany history."
43264 - Schlumberger Tiffany Circa 1976 Gold Necklace
What was missing, was a design director. No one had served in that position since Louis Comfort Tiffany. In 1956, Hoving hired Van Day Truex, a former president of Parsons School of Design, who would firmly guide and influence the look of all the store's merchandise until 1979. His introduction of themes from nature ran through all of the departments.
53106 - Schlumberger Tiffany Gold Diamond Enamel Shell Earrings
Immediately after arriving at Tiffany, Truex suggested hiring French-born jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger. Walter Hoving immediately invited Schlumberger to join Tiffany & Co. Jean was given complete freedom to create his style of fantasy jewelry and ornaments. During his first year, he created the “Bird on a Rock” which is still in use today. “His jewels are like nature unleashed,” said Stellene Volandes, (editor of Town and Country magazine). She cited his Bird on a Rock, as a prime example of his artistry. “To me that is classic Schlumberger,” she said. He takes a fine stone and puts a bird on top, “showing reverence for the stone yet a playfulness as well.”
23798 - Schlumberger Tiffany Platinum Gold Diamond Amethyst BIRD ON A ROCK Pin
The arrival of Schlumberger at the store inaugurated a look of fiercely original jewelry based on mythological creatures from the sea, animals, insects and plants. Schlumberger was the first Tiffany designer to be given the freedom to sign his jewelry creations. A superb draftsman, Schlumberger began each design with a drawing to discover the purity and grace of the natural forms that caught his eye. The sketch, he said, also serves as “the only link between the three members of that complex trio formed by the client, craftsman and creator.”
23507 - Schlumberger Tiffany Platinum Gold Diamond Ruby Ibex Pin
A detailed drawing was produced and the final design was created in precious metals and gemstones, in his studio on the mezzanine level of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship store. Johnny’s (the nickname Schlumberger’s nearest and dearest called him) designs became de rigueur for fashionable women of the time including, The Duchess of Windsor, Gloria Vanderbilt, Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn.
42994 - Schlumberger Tiffany Platinum Gold MASSE Emerald Turquoise Pearl Torsade Necklace
“It’s not at all subtle,” Diana Vreeland once said. “A Schlumberger lights up a whole room!”
Schlumberger retired in the late 1970s, and in later years, He returned to Paris, the city that awakened his artistic soul. Jean Schlumberger was a prolific designer, with an imagination to match, who continued to design into the 1980s. He died in 1987, at the age of eighty, leaving a legacy of bejeweled ocean life, florals, and fauna, as well as, John Loring stated, "...hundreds of drawings Tiffany has not made yet.”
73537 - Schlumberger Tiffany LYNN Gold Platinum Diamond Bracelet
“I try to make everything look as if it were growing, uneven, at random, organic, in motion,” he once said. Flowers, ocean life and birds of wonder, as well as bracelets and necklaces composed with swirls of diamond ribbons. Schlumberger inspired Tiffany jewels were all over recent red carpet appearances by Reese Witherspoon, Michelle Williams and Lady Gaga.
42994 - Schlumberger Tiffany Platinum Gold MASSE Emerald Turquoise Pearl Torsade Necklace
Since his death, Tiffany & Co. has continued to produce his designs. More than a hundred Schlumberger designs continue to be made by Tiffany artisans. Very few designs remain in production 60 or 70 years after they were first created, let alone from a single designer. And a brief glance at Tiffany’s famed Blue Book makes it clear that Schlumberger’s legacy shows no sign of slowing.
Sources:
The Jewels Of Jean Schlumberger, 1995
Bizot, Posseme, de Gary, Bonfante, David-Weill
https://theadventurine.com/culture/books-exhibitions/the-schlumberger-exhibit-goes-behind-the-scenes/
https://www.christies.com/features/The-jewels-of-Jean-Schlumberger-9767-1.aspx
https://www.departures.com/lifestyle/fashion/golden-globes-tiffany-co-celebrities
https://www.langantiques.com/university/schlumberger/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/fashion/jewelry-jean-schlumberger.html
http://press.tiffany.com/ViewBackgrounder.aspx?backgrounderId=18