Anne Schlumberger, a French-born patron of the arts and lifelong resident of Houston, has a unique jewelry&design collection which will be featured during a series of Sotheby’s exhibitions and sales this fall. The collection will be exhibited abroad in several places before its part will go under the hammer at the end of this year.
The most notable item is, of course, the Salvador-Dalí-styled Swirling Sea custom necklace. Its untraditional design features pearls, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds. It was designed in 1954 and was made from 18k gold by Carlos Alemany a decade later in New York. The piece resembles the hypnotic rhythm of ocean waves and how the light is reflected off them. São Schlumberger, Anne’s stepmother, commissioned the surrealist masterpiece soon after she got married to Pierre Schlumberger.
In 1954, Salvador Dalí captured the movement of the sea in this fluid pen-and-watercolor study for his Swirling Sea Necklace.
The designs of François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne whose works became inseparable from Anne Schlumberger’s interior are just as beautiful as the jewelry. Hippopotame Bar was made specifically for Schlumberger by the former in 1976. It’s a one-of-a-kind copper bar cart in the shape of a giant hippo with an estimated value of $7.1 million. Interestingly, the later iterations of this design were cast from bronze.
A 1976 bar sculpture by François-Xavier Lalanne, crafted from copper, nickel silver, stainless steel, brass, and painted wood, shaped as a hippopotamus.
Jodi Pollack, the chairman of Sotheby’s auction house, says that Anne Schlumberger was a mindful collector with an eye for meaningful and harmonious things. Anne Schlumberger’s love for the offbeat and unusual is especially seen in her work with the Lalannes. The collection features Claude’s Les Portes du Jardin gates and Anémone balustrade pieces. It is one of the best collections of Les Lalanne’s work in America and a great testament to her legacy.
Circa 1964 photograph of Madame Schlumberger, elegantly adorned with the Swirling Sea Necklace in her Sutton Place residence.
The Schlumberger family says that their mother’s collection shows her curiosity, artistic sense, and high social connections she found among disciplines. Anne always saw her collection as a means to strike up a conversation and not as a set of decorations. In particular, this Hippopotamus shows how much she appreciated life in general.
Anne Schlumberger died when she was 85 in April this year. The pieces she collected are characterized by bold craftsmanship and creativity. A deep aesthetic taste and the special connection she held with artists she supported are seen in every piece.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong and Paris galleries now display several highlights from the Schlumberger Collection. In the coming months, more items from the collection will go up for sale, with the Hippopotame Bar being the most notable piece at Sotheby’s Important Design Auction on December 10 (New York). The Olertis wishes the greatest success to the auction house and pays their respects to the memory of Anne Schlumberger.
