Auctioning a Piece of American History

Sotheby’s auction house announced Thursday it will auction the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in April.

The four-day sale is expected to bring about $5 million for some 1,200 items, including the desk on which President Kennedy signed the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a Rauschenberg portrait of the couple during the 1960 presidential campaign and a pair of obelisks that sat in the Red Room of the Kennedy White House.

Estimates for individual items were not immediately available.

“The sale of the Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis will be among the most memorable auctions ever to take place,” Sotheby’s President Diana Brooks said.

“The objects we are selling reveal a portrait of one of the most extraordinary women of the 20th century.”

The Kennedys’ children, Caroline and John Jr., this year donated thousands of items to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, but the former first lady provided that the parts of her estate not wanted by her children be sold at auction.

The sale will also include a ruby and diamond necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels and a 40.42 carat marquise diamond ring that was given to her by her second husband, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

About 3,000 books will be sold in lots of 300, including works inscribed by poet Robert Lowell, a grammar school textbook and some books with the president’s seal or notes.

The desk on which the president signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 also happens to be a valued piece of furniture, a Louis XVI Ormolu-Mounted Mahogany Plat and Cartonnier, 18th century, signed by Levasseur.

It was not intended to be used for the historic occasion, Sotheby’s said, but was needed because a small desk was required to accommodate the crowd for the signing.