The Taste TEST

When Anne Bass died in April 2020, the New York Times noted that the great patron of City Ballet had become “one of New York’s most respected philanthropists, supporting, in large but unflashy ways, the New York Botanical Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, and, especially, the New York Public Library and its Jerome Robbins Dance Division.”

- BY STELLENE VOLANDES

On viewing her extensive jewelry collection, which will be auctioned at Christie’s New York in June, the “unflashy” aspect might be a bit difficult to imagine, but if you were ever lucky enough to spot Anne Bass at a gala for one of these causes wearing these jewels, you would understand. She was powerfully present and somehow still elegantly discreet, even in enormous emeralds by JAR.