Adam's FINE JEWELLERY & WATCHES 16 May 2023

53 Jean Schlumberger (1907-1987) began his career in Par- is in the 1930s as a designer of costume jewellery for the re- nowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli and by the end of the de- cade he was creating fine jewellery for a discerning clientèle. In 1939 he joined forces with Nicholas Bongard and together they opened a jewellery shop at 745 Fifth Avenue, NewYork. From plummy amethysts to bursting bright turquoise, Schlumberger looked to nature for inspiration, combining coloured gems with diamonds and yellow gold to create a riot of hue and light. Tiffany & Co., under the direction ofWalter Hoving, recruited Schlumberger in 1955 with hopes to breathe new life into the company and create a new look. Schlumberger was one of only four jewellers that Tiffany has allowed to sign their work and it was his playful imagination that mounted a jewelled bird on top of the famousTiffanyYellow Diamond. In many ways a man ahead of the crowd, Schlumberger was the first jewellery designer to be awarded the prestigious ‘Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award in 1958. The Coty awards were referred to as the “Oscars of fashion” and was the precur- sor to the Council of Fashion Designers of America award today. Created in his studio on the mezzanine level of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship store, his designs became de rigueur for fashion- able women of the time including Diana Vreeland, Babe Paley, Elizabeth Taylor, and Audrey Hepburn. “Schlumberger brings to his art classic design principles of the Renaissance,” reported The Blue Book of 1986. Diana Vreeland, the respected editor of Vogue, wrote that Schlumberger appreciated “the miracle of jewels, which for him are the ways and means to the realisation of his dreams”. Schlumberger retired in the late 1970s and died in 1987, but more than a hundred of his designs continue to be made byTif- fany artisans. In 1995, he became only the third ever jewellery designer to be honoured with a retrospective on his work titled ‘Un Diamant dans la Ville’ in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, who still house many of his original design sketches. Schlumberger’s adoration of the materials of jewellery design is clearly apparent in Lot 71 with its cascading cultured pearls showing what Diana Vreeland meant when saying “It’s not at all subtle …A Schlumberger lights up a whole room!”This is one of many reasons why Schlumberger pieces have not only held their value at auction but continue to increase in general. 71 A CULTURED PEARL TORSADE NECKLACE WITH DIAMOND CLASP, BY JEAN SCHLUMBERGER, CIRCA 1960 Composed of twenty-eight strands of cultured seed pearls measuring approximately 3.17 to 2.31mm, the clasp of bombé design set throughout with brilliant-cut diamonds and gold lace detailing, mounted in platinum and 18K gold, diamonds approximately 5.50cts total, signed Schlumberger, with partial maker’s mark, French assay marks, length approximately 50.5cm € 12,000 - 18,000 Cf:The Rachel Lambert Mellon Collection from theVirginia Museum of FineArts, Jean Schlumberger, 2028, pg. 59 forTorsade bracelets of similar design.