A PAIR OF DIAMOND AND ENAMEL 'TAJ MAHAL' EARCLIPS, DESIGNED BY JEAN SCHLUMBERGER FOR TIFFANY AND CO. Of a pointed, dome design, centring a brilliant-cut diamond accented by blue enamel stripes and textured gold, mounted in 18K gold, signed Sclumberger and Tiffany & Co., with maker's case, length 1.7cm Jean Schlumberger (1907-1987) began his career in Paris in the 1930s as a designer of costume jewellery for the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli and by the end of the decade 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. 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 of Walter 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 famous Tiffany Yellow Diamond. In many ways a man ahead of the crowd, Schlumberger was the first jewellery designers to be awarded the prestigious ‘Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award in 1958. “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”. Created in his studio on the mezzanine level of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship store, his designs became de rigueur for fashionable women of the time including Diana Vreeland, Babe Paley, Elizabeth Taylor, and Audrey Hepburn. Perhaps most famous of all his designs were his pailloné enamel bracelets, which were to become dubbed ‘Jackie Bracelets’ due to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Bouvier’s fondness for the pieces, of which she owned several. The shimmering colours of the bracelet were achieved through an unusual technique wherein translucent enamel and foil were layered on top of another. One of Schlumberger’s most enduring designs, this bracelet can still be found in Tiffany’s contemporary collections and are still admired and sought after. Of these bracelets, fashion editor Diana Vreeland wrote “His enamel is perfection…He likes to stab enamel with nails of gold, as if to hold it from flying back to the world of nature from which he’s taken its colours”. Schlumberger retired in the late 1970s and died in 1987, but more than a hundred of his designs continue to be made by Tiffany 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 pieces have not only held their value at auction but continue to increase in general.