Previous Message

Those jewels did not belong to princess Irene of Greece but to princess Pierre of Greece born Irene ovchinikov. She was a descendant from the famous Russian goldsmith family who fled Russia and found refuge in France. She married Prince Pierre of Greece in the 1930s, very much against the Greek royal family’s will. I have always heard her mentioned as a rather mysterious lady to say the least. She had a very interesting collection. A lot of Boivin pieces with fashionable designs. Her enormous ruby and diamonds lily clips were extraordinary. There was also a very nice ruby and diamond pair of Art Deco earrings. Altogether there were 20 pieces which today would be (and are actually) worth a fortune. At the time of the auction they were considered completely out of fashion. I remember seeing the whole collection in Christie’s Paris. They sold ( I mean the whole collection) for something around one million Swiss francs. I have the catalogue in Paris. The jewels were not at all what you would expect from a member of a royal family but much more like the collection of a very elegant french lady of the 1950s. Some pieces were to kill for in terms of design and workmanship.