Pauline Karpidas, the British-born collector whose name became closely tied to the Greek island of Hydra, is selling her personal jewellery collection at Sotheby’s in New York, just over a year after her art collection set a London auction record.
Sotheby’s will offer 70 jewels from the collection in a dedicated live evening sale, Pauline Karpidas: The Jewelry Collection, on 8 December, with a combined estimate of about US$10 million. A public exhibition opens on 2 December.
The sale includes designs by Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR), Suzanne Belperron, Cartier, Chanel, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels and Bulgari. Sotheby’s describes the collection as “bold, whimsical and wonderfully eclectic”.
A US$3.5 million ring leads the sale
The top lot is a JAR ring set with a coloured diamond, diamonds and chalcedony, estimated at US$2.5 million to US$3.5 million. According to Artnet News, Karpidas brought the 10-carat pear-shaped pink diamond to JAR herself and he turned it into a wearable sculpture.
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Two more JAR rings feature among the highlights: a 1990 diamond and basalt ring (US$450,000 to US$650,000) and a sapphire and platinum ring (US$300,000 to US$500,000). Also on offer are a JAR floral pendant necklace (US$250,000 to US$350,000), a Cartier leaf-and-branch diamond bracelet (US$200,000 to US$300,000), a Belperron aquamarine and diamond necklace that can also be worn as a brooch (US$150,000 to US$250,000), and a 1930s Chanel bracelet (US$80,000 to US$120,000).
One of the more unusual pieces is an 18th-century reliquary cross that once belonged to Francesco Martelli, a cardinal appointed by Pope Clement IX, which Karpidas wore to galas. It is estimated at US$80,000 to US$120,000.
The Warhol connection
Several lots tell the story of Karpidas’ friendship with Andy Warhol, whom she met on a visit to his Factory in New York. The pair bonded over their love of 1940s jewellery, especially pieces by Belperron, and Warhol painted her portrait in 1978, WWD reported.
“To begin with, he wasn’t even remotely interested in talking about art with me, only my jewelry,” Karpidas said, as quoted by WWD.
Two pieces in the sale were bought by Karpidas at Sotheby’s 1988 auction of Warhol’s estate: a Seaman Schepps rock crystal bracelet (US$50,000 to US$70,000) and a Verdura amethyst and diamond brooch with matching earclips (US$20,000 to US$30,000). A pair of Cartier ruby earrings and a matching ring were bought at the landmark 1987 sale of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels.
“Pauline and Andy’s relationship is one of the threads that makes this jewelry collection so personal,” Quig Bruning, Sotheby’s global head of jewellery, told WWD. “She trusted her own eye, surrounded herself with artists and designers, and moved instinctively between art, jewelry and design.”
Bruning also told WWD that the collection “brings together three things collectors are increasingly looking for: exceptional design, rarity and compelling provenance”.
From an Athens boutique to Hydra
Born in Manchester, Karpidas moved to London as a young woman and later to Greece, where she opened a clothing boutique in Athens called My Fair Lady, The Guardian reported. It was there that she met her late husband, Constantinos “Dinos” Karpidas.
Several international outlets have described Dinos Karpidas as a shipping magnate, but Sotheby’s calls him an engineer and businessman from a wealthy family of Greek industrialists, The Guardian calls him an engineer and businessman, and The Art Newspaper a construction magnate. According to Proto Thema, he was a leading executive and shareholder of Archimidis, a major Greek port-construction company, and a driving force behind Archirodon, the joint venture founded in 1959 that went on to build ports and infrastructure across the Middle East.
Dinos Karpidas already collected Renoir and Picasso, but the couple’s collecting changed course after the late Greek-American dealer Alexander Iolas, the man credited with discovering Warhol, began advising Pauline in the early 1990s, according to The Art Newspaper.
Hydra became central to that story. Karpidas first visited the island in the early 1960s and kept returning, The Guardian reported. She later set up the Hydra Workshop, an exhibition space on the island, and for more than two decades hosted an annual summer gathering there that brought artists, curators and collectors to see new work from her collection.
In 2023, Sotheby’s sold around 300 works from her Hydra home in Paris, after the house itself was sold earlier that year, The Art Newspaper reported.
A record-breaking London sale
The jewellery auction follows Pauline Karpidas: The London Collection, the Surrealist art and design sale series held at Sotheby’s London in September 2025. It realised £101 million (about US$137 million), the most valuable single-owner sale series ever staged in London, according to Sotheby’s. All 345 lots sold, The Value reported.
The evening auction on 17 September 2025 alone took £73.2 million (US$100 million). Its top lot was René Magritte’s La Statue volante, which sold for £10.1 million (about US$13.8 million).
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(Sources: Sotheby’s, WWD, Artnet News, Rapaport, The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, Proto Thema, The Value)
