Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, who was prominent during the 1950s and 1960s, is selling her jewelry to raise money for stem-cell research.
“This will not be the end of the jewelry but it will be something that does good, helping a cause that is very important to me,” she told Reuters on Tuesday. “I want to leave a souvenir of my life.”
Her jewelry includes diamond and pearl earrings made around 50 years ago that are expected to fetch $1 million. The collection also includes a 19 carat diamond ring and a diamond necklace and bracelet worth as much as $500,000.
“All of the jewels to be sold by the actress have been estimated at between two and three million dollars,” a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s told AFP on Tuesday.
The spokeswoman did not know if Lollobrigida, 85, would be at the auction in Geneva on May 14.
Lollobrigida, who appeared in “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman” and “Come September,” said that she devotes her time to sculpting, photojournalism, and humanitarian work after she stopped acting in the 1980s.
David Bennett, who heads Sotheby’s Switzerland, said her collection is “a wonderful opportunity for collectors to acquire seminal Bulgari pieces, imbued with Gina Lollobrigida’s magical provenance.”
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