Just over a year after Pauline Karpidas: The London Collection rewrote the record books as the most valuable single-owner sale series ever staged in London, realizing £101 million / $137 million for the masterpieces of Surrealist art and design, Sotheby’s presents another deeply personal chapter in Karpidas’ collecting story: her exceptional jewelry.

Bold, whimsical and wonderfully eclectic, the collection is so intimately bound to Pauline Karpidas’ singular vision that to encounter these jewels is, in many ways, to know the woman herself. Guided by instinct and personal conviction rather than trends, she collected with the same fearless individuality that defined her approach to art, gravitating toward jewels that were as imaginative, unconventional, and utterly unique as the works that filled her homes. Groundbreaking creations by Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR) and Suzanne Belperron sit alongside an extraordinary group of Retro jewels by Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari and Trabert & Hoeffer Mauboussin, as well as Art Deco masterpieces by Cartier. The selection is further enriched by sumptuous colored gemstones stones that mirror the vibrance of Karpidas herself and the art with which she chose to surround herself. Together, they reveal a collector whose eye was drawn unfailingly to the exceptional. Comprising seventy pieces, Pauline Karpidas: The Jewelry Collection will be offered in a dedicated live evening auction at Sotheby’s New York on 8 December, estimated in the range of $10 million. The auction will be preceded by a public exhibition, opening on 2 December.