Ana Khouri Brings Her Artist’s Eye to a New Collection of High Jewelry

Ana Khouri’s new high jewelry collection combines Brazilian rosewood, significant stones, and unlikely materials including rock crystal and citrine.

Ana Khouri Brings Her Artist’s Eye to a New Collection of High Jewelry

“Stop bouncing it!” I cry out as the artist and jeweler Ana Khouri absentmindedly plays with an exquisite minaudière made of carved pink quartz. This evening purse—and what an evening that would be!—doubles as an objet d’art, and is one of 17 spectacular examples of high jewelry created by Khouri currently on view at Sotheby’s alongside the much anticipated sale of the Macklowe collection. The art coming up for auction contains rare jewels of its own—an early Rothko! Warhol’s Nine Marilyns!—and the bold modernism that defines these works also informs Khouri’s imagination.

Though she lives in New York, Khouri is Brazilian and spent three months in her home country during the pandemic. As it did for so many of us, the forced pause made her reexamine a lot of her assumptions. “Last year I had time,” she explains. “I began to focus on materials, going through crystals, pink quartz, wood, going back in nature. It was almost like I was hydrating myself through materials, and I thought, “Why am I not using these? Why don’t we bring these to high jewelry?”

This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Lynn Yaeger