When I bought Temple St. Clair’s first book “Alchemy”, read her name and saw the kind of jewellery she creates, I was convinced she is a descendant of one of the families in a Dan Brown novel. You know what I mean, those with ancestors in Scotland and France who have a direct bloodline to Jesus Christ or Mary Magdalene.
Her appearance in a picture inside the book kind of confirmed that belief, brownish hair, aristocratic strong face, slim figure. Her picture on the back cover of her second book “The Golden Menagerie” a few years later played even more with the image of a mysterious heroine. Red hair, a (real?) falcon on her arm, dark and regal clothes. The picture does remind me of a noblewoman from the Middle Ages. The whole book is made up like a bible from ancient times, gold cut, and with a slip case so heavy it could survive the centuries.
In both books she tells about her life story and I was a little disappointed to learn Temple St. Clair comes from an old and distinguished, but not really mysterious, family from the southern part of the United States. She travelled the world when young already, no real need to work for money, arrived in Florence and came to jewellery making through a coincidence in her mid-twenties.
To this day she draws the sketches for her jewellery, but then works with Florentine goldsmiths who make the jewels. She founded her jewellery business in New York in 1986 and is a well-known niche jeweller ever since. Quite a success story for somebody who states on her homepage that she is still only learning to be a jewellery designer. On the other hand, she is clear about being an accomplished storyteller and that is what gives her jewels heart and soul.
Temple St. Clair does not so much create jewellery, but she creates art in gold and precious stones. All of her jewels are extremely finely chiselled. When browsing through the books and her homepage, the main difference in her jewels are not the motives, but if they are of the straighter or the more elaborate part of the collection. We see examples for both in the pictures of the book covers accompanying this essay.
The straighter jewels have clear lines and are made from gold and precious stones into jewellery that can be worn every day. Many earrings fall into that category, or the rock crystal pendants (amulets). If you google Julia Roberts and Temple St. Clair you see the high jewellery version of the day-to-day line. Clear and classic, unobtrusive. I read she even made collection for the store brand “Target” once – this would be the really economic version of the more simplistic line. Only connoisseurs will recognize these jewels as part of the Temple St. Clair jewellery family.
The other line is much more elaborate, bigger and whimsical in detail. Those jewels are heavy in symbolism, beautifully crafted and maybe not the most wearable of jewels. Some of the animal rings must be a few centimetres high. Nothing one can wear every day, but when looked up closely one sees perfect faces of animals, with love to detail crafted, or wonderful bracelets of astonishing width and serious pendants.
My favourite jewel is the Tolomeo pendant, as shown in the book “Alchemy”. Made from gold and precious stones it shows the old Ptolemaic solar system with the Earth in the middle and an extra line for the zodiac signs. Careful, it is not the solar system as we know it today to be true, with the Sun in the middle and the planet Earth coming third after Mercury and Venus, but what was believed before Nicholas Copernicus made his astronomical results public in the 15th century. By church and worldly masters this view of the Earth as not being the centre of the universe was only accepted after quite a few non-repenting scientists were burned by the Inquisition.
Temple St. Clair made her pendant according to the old beliefs, which is very charming when there is no more disgusting burning for believes involved. When laid on a table it is a round pendant made of 8 lines for planets and zodiac signs, with a round stone in the middle. The lines can freely rotate when held up and given the space to move. The precious stones must sparkle in all colours of the rainbow then, like in a fairy tale. When worn on a chain on the neck of course the space for rotating is limited, but even a straight front picture of the pendant is stunning. I read on her homepage that one of the pendants is on permanent exhibition in the Louvre. Rightly so, it is one of the most beautiful works of jewellery art I have seen (unfortunately only on pictures so far, but the Louvre is always worth a visit!).
She describes the people who buy her jewels as collectors and I trust that is true. Some people collect paintings, some wine, some will collect her art. I couldn’t find many pictures of celebrities wearing her jewels – no surprise, it is jewellery for those who want to tell a story and not so much be the story.
And who knows, maybe Temple St. Clair did not tell us all, maybe her family is one of those mentioned in a Dan Brown novel. Hadn’t they to flee Europe in difficult times to remote destinations? The image Temple St. Clair created embraces mystery and inspiration from times long gone. She makes the beauty of ancient times tangible.
All rights to the books belong to:
St. Clair, Temple, 2008: Alchemy, A Passion for Jewels, Harper Collins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022, USA, Printed in China, ISBN-13: 978-0-06-119873-1
St. Clair, Temple, 2016: The Golden Menagerie, Assouline, 3rd Park Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10016, USA, Printed in China, ISBN: 9781614285427