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Born in Mulhouse, France, in 1907, Jean Schlumberger drew constantly since he was a child. He dreamed of one day becoming an artist, but his parents, who expected him to take over the family textile business, sent him to Berlin to work in banking. When he was in his early 20s, he defiantly moved to Paris and opened a jewelry workshop on Rue La Boétie, where he handcrafted delicate floral brooches from Meissen porcelain, antique cameos and Victorian decorative objects he found in the Marché. aux Puces. His fantastic creations soon caught the attention of the fashion world. After seeing Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark in a pair of her earrings in 1937, Italian couturier Elsa Schiaparelli commissioned her to design buttons in the shapes of fruits and insects.
Around 1947, Schlumberger moved to New York and opened a boutique on East 63rd Street. Bunny Mellon, Babe Paley, and Diana Vreeland became devoted collectors, and in 1956, Schlumberger was named vice president of Tiffany & Co. With access to a trove of exquisite gemstones, he was able to design some of its most memorable and otherworldly jewelry, many of them. all of which were inspired by his frequent trips to the Caribbean: shell-shaped pillboxes studded with garnets, 18-karat yellow gold seahorse brooches, and ruby-encrusted clips that looked like glistening sea slugs.
Now, Tiffany & Co. is revisiting a piece from Schlumberger’s archive: a 1956 star-shaped clip-on brooch with thin branches of coral protruding from a pave ribbon of intertwined diamonds in the center. This new version arrives with chandelier earrings, each featuring its own pair of oval imperial topaz, surrounded by hand-cut carnelian tips and strung with strands of sparkling round-cut diamonds. “I want to capture the irregularity of the universe,” Schlumberger once said. Nearly 70 years later, his vision remains compelling.
Photography assistant: Christopher Thomas Linn. Assistant Set Designer: Joseph McCagherty