Russian royal jewels smuggled out of the country during the 1917 revolution go under the hammer next week in Geneva.

The large oval sapphire and diamond brooch and matching earclips are from the jewellery box of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, daughter-in-law of Tsar Alexander II and aunt of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

She was known as the queen of social life in St Petersburg, according to Olivier Wagner, of auctioneers Sotheby's.

"She was the wife of the Grand Duc Vladimir, so the son of the tsar (Alexander II), and she had a fantastic collection of jewels."

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In 1917, as Russia was engulfed by revolution, she entrusted the jewels to her friend Albert Henry Stopford who took them to London for safekeeping along with other jewels.

Pavlovna escaped from revolutionary Russia and died in France in 1920. Her brooch and earrings are being sold by a European princely family who bought them at auction in 2009, Sotheby's said.

The auction house estimates their value at  $305,000 to $525,000.

They are being sold alongside other jewels, including an orange-pink diamond set in a ring, weighing 25.62 carats, estimated to fetch $3.94 million to $5.9 million, and a pair of flawless white diamond earrings, with a suspended square-cut stone weighing 25.88 carats, expected to fetch $4.47 million to $5.45 million.