Box of gold shaped like a giant clam; c. 1959
JEAN SCHLUMBERGER (1907-1987), a great artist and one of the 20th century’s most influential jewelry designers, embraced the wonders of the Earth with extraordinary imagination. Nature excited him, and he drew freely from it. With intelligence, wit, and unique taste for the exotic, he interpreted the natural reality of flowers and fruit, animals and marine life into an arresting jeweled aesthetic of breathtaking beauty.
Schlumberger’s attachment to nature, particularly his passion for the sea, colored his vision of the world as a wondrous and magical place. Throughout his life, this artist endeavored “to make everything look as if it were growing, uneven, at random, in motion.” Schlumberger once explained, “I want to capture the irregularity of the universe. I observe nature and I find verve.”
Resisting trends, Schlumberger innovated his own highly personal style. His art was organic but representational.He achieved new forms. His sculptural and romantic designs played with tradition yet took jewelry and objects into a new and timeless glittering universe. He was master of his own fantastic cosmos. Anything was possible.
Influenced by the surrealist tendencies of 1930s avant-garde art, particularly the works of friends Salvador Dalí, Bébé Bérard, and Leonor Fini, Schlumberger was enthralled with the sea’s imagery. Like the Surrealists, he considered the sea a metaphor for the infinite unconscious. He fancied that ambiguous marine creatures suggested the elemental origins of life. And, indeed, he celebrated the sea with an amazing range of captivating designs.
Star clip with gold points composed of flame-like gold spears and central platinum elements with diamonds in pavé; c. 1962
We are dazzled by works such as his wriggly gold starfish clip rising in the center to an angular mound of diamonds. Strikingly three-dimensional, it appears to dance as if animated by the energy of the sea. His gem-laden fish clip is mesmerizing. It twists and seems to come alive with sparkle and flash. Did this fish just catch the red sea star? His box of high polished and chased gold is distinguished with the fluid blue of lapislazuli, evoking a sense of the limitless space of the ocean, while his gleaming, textured, gold boxes rendered in sinuous lines—the clamshell, the double-spiral shell, and the starfish clutching a rock— recall the sea’s rhythms. We can imagine these fanciful creations in constant motion at the will of the sea.
The works illustrated here are part of a ravishing repertoire, influenced by the artist’s frequent visits to the Caribbean and Indonesia. Schlumberger’s sea-themed designs evolved over decades, referencing a wide array of conches and ocean flora, urchins and horses of the sea, jellyfish and dolphins, as well as seabirds and even mythical mermaid goddesses.
Born in Alsace, France, Schlumberger left his hometown of Mulhouse determined to seek his fate outside his family’s successful textile business. In the early 1930s, he settled in Paris and discovered the city’s vibrant flea markets. Soon enough, the young artist transformed flea market finds of antique porcelain flowers into remarkable makeshift jewelry, using semi-precious stones to embellish the flowers’ petals. This first jewelry was known as bijoux fantaisies. The stunningly original creations were an instant hit among his fashionable friends. Some of the designs were spectacular flyingfish earrings, but it was the goldfish lighter with gemstone eyes and flexible tail that became the most celebrated work of his early career. After World War II, Schlumberger found his way to New York. Inevitably, his rare genius attracted the admiration of Tiffany Chairman Walter Hoving who persuaded Schlumberger to join Tiffany & Co. In 1956, Schlumberger began a brilliant association with the renowned American luxury house. Tiffany offered an unlimited supply of the finest gemstones for the artist to create the most fabulous designs of his career. The fruitful association lasted over thirty years until Schlumberger’s death in 1987 at the age of eighty. Posthumously, Schlumberger was honored with a careerspanning retrospective organized by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Palais du Louvre, Paris, the city where he began his extraordinary art and lived his final days.
Today, Schlumberger’s legacy endures. His signature designs are still exclusively produced by Tiffany & Co., with devotion to detail and craftsmanship. And with 20th century master jewelry finding its way into the auction houses, we are seeing more of Schlumberger’s stunning creations, including some of the artist’s favorite sea-inspired objects, at auction.
Fish clip of gold, aquamarines, amethysts, and rubies with a red-lacquered gold starfish in its mouth; 1956
Of Schlumberger’s many inspirations, none was greater than the sea. His treasures from the sea are sheer poetry.These may lead us to seek all the many other wonders of his imagination and get to know his comprehensive achievement in interpreting nature. Fortunately for us in the Mid-Atlantic, just a summer day’s drive away, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond offers the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon, arguably the finest and most comprehensive collection of Jean Schlumberger designs in the United States.
For more on the art of Jean Schlumberger, the gloriously illustrated catalog published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001, in conjunction with the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, The Jewels of Jean Schlumberger, is the definitive reference.
John Francisco Andreu is a member of the ChesapeakeHome Editorial Advisory Board and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 2001.
Contacts:
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; vmfa.state.va.us or 804-340-1400
Tiffany & Co.: tiffany.com or 800-843-3269
