About Us




We are the only association that provides an in-depth analysis of jewelry from all time periods. We offer studies from ancient through contemporary jewelry.

The Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts, is an organization dedicated to the advancement of jewelry studies in schools, museums, and institutions of higher learning. It is also committed to the dissemination of knowledge to anyone who is interested in the history of jewelry. ASJRA takes a broad approach to the subject, seeking to understand and place jewelry within a variety of contexts, including from the ancient past to present day, the decorative arts, and fashion.

We use jewelry as a window into the study of cultures and specific time periods and learn about politics, cultural changes, world events and much more by studying jewelry trends, materials and usage.

One of our most important activities is organizing an annual event as a forum for curators, academic historians, and scholars and artists to present new and interesting information about jewelry. Anyone who is interested in jewelry will enjoy attending. It's a chance to learn and network with people who collect, appraise, study and research jewelry history.


The co-directors of the event are:

Elyse Zorn Karlin Elyse Zorn Karlin is the founder and publisher of Adornment Magazine. She is also the author of the definitive book on jewelry of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Jewelry and Metalwork in the Arts & Crafts Tradition and the catalogues International Art Jewelry, 1895-1925 and Out of this World! Jewelry in the Space Age, She co-authored Imperishable Beauty:Art Nouveau Jewelry and An Artist in the Studio: The Jewelry of Sallyann Wekstein and was the editor of Maker and Muse Women and Early 20th Century Art Jewelry.

She is also a freelance curator; her past exhibitions include Jewelers of the Hudson Valley (The Forbes Galleries), International Art Jewelry 1895-1925 (The Forbes Galleries), Finer Things: Jewelry from the 1880s-1920s, (Stan Hywet House and Gardens, Akron OH,) Out of this World! Jewelry in the Space Age, (The Forbes Galleries and The Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Tellus Science Museum, Cartersville, GA); Maker and Muse: Women and Early 20th Century Art Jewelry (Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago, IL, the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, FL and other venues). She is currently curating Chicago Collects: Jewelry in Perspective at the Driehaus Museum which opens May 24, 2004. It will travel to the Muskegan Museum of Art, MI in the fall of 2024.



Yvonne J. Markowitz is the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator Emerita of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is the first curatorship of its kind in America. She is also the editor of Adornment Magazine.

A frequent lecturer, she has published extensively in the area of ancient and contemporary jewelry. She is the author of Artful Adornments: Jewelry from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Jewels of Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin, She is co-author of the books Artistic Luxury: Jewels from the House of Tiffany and Imperishable Beauty:Art Nouveau Jewelry, Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen, Looking at Jewelry: A Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques and Oscar Heyman:The Jeweler’s Jeweler among others.

The curator of numerous exhibitions, her most recent was as co-curator of "Jewels of the Nile: Treasures from the Worcester Art Museum" which closed in January 2023.