Kleodora Queen Bee Clutch — Carved Amethyst Handbag by L'Aquart × Luis Alberto Quispe Aparicio

A clutch bag built from hand-carved amethyst, one gemstone cell at a time. One of one.

The object

Kleodora Queen Bee is a fully functioning clutch bag whose body is constructed entirely from natural amethyst and metal — no fabric, no leather exterior, no synthetic surface. The form is achieved through a process of lapidary precision: individual hexagonal amethyst cells, each hand-carved in three dimensions, are set one by one into a gold-plated bronze honeycomb frame. The result is an object that carries the weight and light of a gemstone and the structure of a bag in equal measure.

The name

Kleodora is a figure from ancient Greek mythology — a nymph whose upper body was that of a woman and whose lower body took the form of a bee. Her name derives from kleos (glory, renown) and dōron (gift): a gift of fame, or a gift worthy of it. The Queen Bee clutch draws on this image directly — sovereignty, beauty, and a nature that is both human and something older.

The making

The development of the original Kleodora Queen Bee model took Luis Alberto Quispe Aparicio nearly three years, from first sketch to finished object. The process begins with the bee figure carved in wax and cast in metal. The frame is then cut and shaped. Each honeycomb cell is individually carved from amethyst slab — not flat, but with a sculptural, three-dimensional profile — and set by hand into the metal frame, one piece at a time, without damaging the stone or its neighbours. The level of precision required for each hexagon to fit, align, and hold is extreme. A single Kleodora clutch requires close to 500 working hours from start to finish.

The stone

Amethyst is a crystalline variety of quartz coloured violet by iron impurities and natural irradiation within the lattice. It registers 7 on the Mohs hardness scale — hard enough to sustain the carving of precise, fine-walled honeycomb geometry, and receptive to the high polish that gives each cell its depth of colour. The amethyst version of Kleodora is one of five colour editions created after the original ruby model: lapis lazuli, quartz, amethyst, jade, and tiger's eye. Each is a distinct object; none repeats the other.

The concept

The idea for Kleodora formed in Paris in 2012, where Quispe Aparicio was completing an MBA in International Luxury Brand Management. He had arrived with the intention of understanding exactly where lapidary art could meet the world of fashion — and the freedom of that city, kept deliberately at a distance from its trends, gave him the clarity to conceive something that had not existed before: a bag built from gemstone, by a jeweller's hand, as an act of fashion.

The artist

Luis Alberto Quispe Aparicio is a Peruvian-born lapidary artist and the creative director of L'Aquart, an atelier specialising in sculptural objects from precious and semi-precious stones and metal. His practice is defined by the demand for harmony between techniques — lapidary carving, metalwork, and structural planning — held together by a refusal to accept difficulty as a reason not to proceed. The Kleodora series was conceived for collectors who, in his words, already have everything.

Offered by

Surround Art Gallery presents this amethyst Kleodora as a singular work in its curated programme of objects at the intersection of lapidary art, fine craft, and collecting.

Materials: Natural amethyst (hand-carved honeycomb cells), gold-plated bronze frame and hardware  

Construction: Approx. 500 working hours, entirely by hand

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