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"Markings"an exquisite and elegant cast 18K gold
and hand-carved turquoise ring by Eveli Sabatie, Santa Fe, NM, c. late 1970’s-early 1980'S
ex: Eveli Sabatie Personal Collection
This wonderful ring perfectly showcases the artistic beauty and technical refinement of Eveli Sabatie’s jewelry. Evelyn (Eveli) Sabatie (French-Moroccan, b.1940) began her jewelry-making career in 1968 as an apprentice to the groundbreaking Hopi jewelry master, Charles Loloma (1921-1991), and she very quickly established her own unique and highly-distinctive style of jewelry, melding influences which she absorbed during her several years time at Hopi with Loloma with those from her earlier life in her native North African countries of Algeria and Morocco.
The result is a daring and unprecedented synthesis of form and color delivered with an often astonishing degree of technical virtuosity. Accordingly, this ring has everything that we love about Eveli’s work; extraordinary exuberant creativity, startling originality, a unique and powerful sculptural design concept, interesting use of beautiful materials
and unparalleled craftsmanship and sophisticated technique.
Eveli in Hotevilla Village, Hopi Third Mesa, March 1972 while she was working as an apprectice at the Loloma studio.
Photo source and © Eveli Sabatie, "A Jeweler's Memoir", ACC Art Books Ltd., 2022
“She is innovating even more on her own—her style has some influence because she was trained here….Her style is really…her own and is now starting to have a strong flavor of North Africa…parts of her innovation I also incorporated back.”
—Charles Loloma discussing the work of Eveli Sabatie in a later interview with Erin Younger, May, 1978, Heard Museum Phoenix.
Quoted in Martha Struever, “Loloma, Beauty Is His Name”, © Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005, pp.19
At left and right, Eveli Sabatie making jewelry at her bench in her Santa Fe studio where she made this ring. At center, Eveli Sabatie's 2022 jewelry memoir, copies of which are available on our website.
Photo source and © Richard Smith
In our view, Eveli Sabatie should not be seen so much as being a “Southwestern” or “Native” artist though she certainly draws much inspiration from those worlds, she exists on a much larger artistic stage and is much more of a “world” artist,
in our view and this lovely ring with its swoopy clean-lined Modernist style presentation is perfect proof of that proposition. This is a beautifully styled streamlined piece with a wonderful sophisticated and sculptural handmade quality to it.
The ring is most beautifully fabricated in an extremely sophisticated architectural band style with various levels and layers like a miniature horizontal skyscraper. And the fact that it appears to be cast only adds to the beauty as casting gold metal in such a sophisticated and complex multi-layered form in such a small area is a painstaking and precise and extremely ambitious task at best and Eveli pulled it off perfectly here. The ring prominently features a gorgeously hand-carved clear blue triangularly-shaped turquoise stone set in the center in a beautiful slightly-raised gold bezel and a very small matching square-shaped turquoise stone set asymmetrically along one side of the gold shank in an unexpected and lovely decorative touch. We believe the turquoise is possibly Kingman or Sleeping Beauty, Arizona most likely Sleeping Beauty.
The ring measures 5/16" in width at its widest center point and tapers down slightly to 3/16" in width at the back of the
gold shank. The ring measures a size 7 on a professional graduated ring sizer. It weighs a very nice feeling and extremely comfortable 6 grams or 1/4 ounce. The ring is in excellent original vintage condition particularly for its 40 or so years
of age and it is properly signed “Eveli” in her customary first name only signature on the interior. The gold is not quality marked on the ring, but Eveli recently told us it was 18K. The ring has a lovely soft, almost glowing patina.
The ring also has a perfect provenance. We purchased it a year or so ago from a trusted Santa Fe museum colleague who
is a personal friend of Eveli Sabatie’s who told us that the ring had come directly from her personal collection. We very recently spoke with Eveli about the ring and in addition to confirming the timeframe in which she made it and the 18K gold content of it, she had some other interesting things to say about it:
"Because of the two parallel deep cuts into the turquoise, I want to call this ring "Markings", such as the markings from ancient cultures indicating participation in significant events or allegiance to a certain faith."
-Eveli Sabatie, August 2025
This elegant and exquisite ring is a perfectly conceived, perfectly constructed and extremely wearable small jewelry sculpture, a precious jewelry master work by an enormously imaginative and talented World artist. And, just like its creator, this ring is small in stature, but mighty in its impact.
Price $4,600
