Resplendent art and objects, including rare jewellery pieces, from the collection of the late Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten will be offered at Sotheby’s London on March 24.

More than 350 lots spanning jewellery, furniture, paintings, sculpture, books, silver ornaments, ceramics and other objets d’art will be displayed at a public exhibition from March 20 to 23 prior to the sale. 

Patricia – the 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, great niece of Russia’s last Tsarina, first cousin to Prince Philip and the daughter of Britain’s last Viceroy of India – was born in 1924 into a dazzling dynasty of royal and political relations. 

Known and remembered for her “unwavering perseverance and beguiling sense of humour,” Patricia has had a colourful and unconventional upbringing – from weekend parties with King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at her parents’ estate in Hampshire to evacuation on the eve of the Blitz to stay with Cornelius Vanderbilt III in her palatial Fifth Avenue apartment in New York.

In 1943, at the age of 19, she entered the Women’s Royal Navy Service where she met, and fell in love with, John Knatchbull, 7th Lord Brabourne (1924-2005) – a captain in the armed forces who later became an Academy-award nominated film producer. 

They married in a lavish ceremony officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury and attended by the King and Queen, with the Royal princesses Elizabeth and Margaret among the bridesmaids and Prince Philip as an usher.

Throughout their almost 60-year marriage, the couple inherited and amassed an impressive collection of art and objects. Over 350 lots from Newhouse – Patricia and John’s 18th-century home – will be offered for sale with estimates ranging from £80 to £100,000 (around US$112 to US$140,000). 

These include a pair of bejewelled gold and enamel elephants made in Jaipur and a Fabergé silver-gilt inkwell circa 1900.

Another highlight of the sale is a Tutti Frutti-style jewellery set adorned with carved rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Other Tutti Frutti pieces include dress clips, earrings and a ring.

Also up for auction is the Banks Diamond – a late 18th-century brooch with a cushion-shaped yellow diamond in the centre. The piece, originally owned by scientist and explorer Sir Joseph Banks, was gifted to his wife, and eventually passed to her sister Mary, Lady Knatchbull, and finally to Lord Brabourne and its last wearer, Patricia.