Tsar jewels still have charm. So at the Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels auction at Sotheby’s in Geneva, a sapphire and diamond brooch and matching clip earrings, smuggled out of Russia at the time of the 1917 revolution, sold for $ 850,000, against a maximum estimate of $ 500,000. They are jewels that belonged to the Romanoff family. To be precise, they belonged to the aunt of Emperor Nicholas II, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1854-1920), who entrusted her expatriation to her friend, the British antiquarian and aristocrat Albert Henry Stopford (1860-1939). of jewels in London.