Jackie’s World on Sotheby’s Block: History Goes on Sale
Several months before she died in May of 1994, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis met with her lawyer, Alexander D. Forger, to talk about an auction.
Her 15-room Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park was filled to overflowing with possessions. So were several homes she owned. She also had goods packed into a warehouse. Now, at 64, she was dying of cancer, and she was well aware of what she possessed. She knew the value of provenance--that objects owned by famous people could fetch far higher prices than the same items belonging to nonentities. So one of the world’s most private people made the decision to permit one of the most public of events--an auction of her personal effects after her death.
“Obviously, she wanted the children to preserve private papers and the like,” Forger said. “For tangibles, for furniture, tables, rugs, pictures, it was simply another element of property that had served its purpose and now could serve another purpose.”
As the silver-haired lawyer and his client talked in her comfortably decorated apartment, the outline emerged for what has become one of the most highly publicized auctions in history. Onassis decided to leave the precise selection of what to sell, retain or donate to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston to her children, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.
Starting Tuesday, Sotheby’s will sell 1,195 lots from Onassis’ estate--including such items as Caroline’s rocking horse and John Jr.’s highchair, which were in the White House nursery; their mother’s French textbook (with her girlish doodles of an evening gown and a woman’s suit); her riding saddles; the Louis XVI table on which the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty was signed; and JFK’s golf clubs.
In a climate where the white suit John Travolta wore in “Saturday Night Fever” sold for $145,500 and Vivien Leigh’s “Gone with the Wind” Oscar went for $563,500, Sotheby’s officials eagerly await the Kennedy sale.
Some Sotheby’s executives believe that total returns from the five-day sale could eclipse the $25 million raised when Andy Warhol’s personal effects were auctioned in 1987 or even the more than $50 million the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels and other goods brought the same year.
“We say again and again this is unprecedented, but indeed it is,” said David Redden, a division head at Sotheby’s who will be one of the auctioneers.
“It [the Windsor auction] was one of the most remarkable sales Sotheby’s has ever had,” Redden said. “It was a sale in which the provenance of the material proved to be of supreme importance. . . . The extremely modest items became icons, in a sense. Anything with the Prince of Wales’ feathers on them became exceedingly valuable.”
As Sotheby’s prepares to hold what Time magazine tartly labeled the Camelot garage sale, the auction house’s marketing machine is working overtime.
For the first time, Sotheby’s hired a telemarketing firm and set up a special 800 number to handle phone sales of the catalog. At latest count, 75,000 catalogs ($90 for hardcover and $45 for paperback) have been sold--a record for Sotheby’s. One hundred thousand were printed.
More than 300 requests have been received from reporters from 40 countries to cover the auction.
Diana D. Brooks, Sotheby’s president, who will conduct the first night’s auction, appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” promoting some of the jewelry up for bid.
“This is very interesting,” she said as she held up a necklace of costume pearls for a TV close-up, “because when you look back in the catalog . . . we have a picture of Mrs. Kennedy meeting Charles de Gaulle and wearing this particular necklace. So it has a wonderful story.”
“Wow!” exclaimed King. “And you value this at only $200 to $300?”
“Well,” replied Brooks, “if you went and bought this, it would probably be about $10--so we put $200 to $300.”
“What do you think this might go for really?” King asked.
“I would say it would go over $1,000,” Brooks predicted.
Unlike most exhibitions, where potential buyers can handle the merchandise, Sotheby’s has set up Onassis’ property like a museum--with security rivaling that of the White House.
The 40,000 people expected to view the lots up for sale must pass through metal detectors at a special white-tented entrance to the auction house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Many of the items are arranged in room-like settings behind velvet ropes, with poster-size photographs of Onassis wearing some of the objects to be sold.
Brooks said that 40,000 absentee bids--a record--have already been received, with more pouring in daily.
Not only is the auction significant to the Kennedy children, who will be using some of the proceeds to pay estate taxes, it is also important to Sotheby’s in its constant quest for new business. Over the years, auction houses have moved to diversify, selling everything from Disney animated art to Soviet spacecraft. High-profile auctions are a key ingredient in the marketing mix.
Celebrity sales bring prestige and enhance the reputation of an auction house. They serve as a springboard for soliciting new business, not only from wealthy collectors but from trust officers at banks and lawyers handling estates.
The Onassis sale “shines their image and brings in new merchandise,” said Anne Marie May, an executive of Fitch Investors, a rating service that follows Sotheby’s stock. “The name of the game is having people in the seats and having knowledgeable bidders.”
Onassis’ children and the executors of her estate, Forger and Maurice Tempelsman, her longtime companion, approached both Sotheby’s and Christie’s about holding the auction. From the first, Sotheby’s had several factors in its favor.
Sotheby’s had been called in to do an initial appraisal of the estate’s vast number of items after Onassis’ death. In addition, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was familiar with the auction house because of courses she had taken there from its experts. “It became a natural relationship to continue on with the sale at Sotheby’s,” Forger explained.
The auction house presented the Kennedy children and executors with a custom-tailored proposal. Sotheby’s executives decline to comment on its contents other than to say that Onassis’ estate was not given a guaranteed dollar amount from the auction before the bidding begins.
In a departure from the norm, Sotheby’s did agree that profits from the sale of catalogs would go to Onassis’ children, who will donate the money to charity. This will allow them to take a deduction against estate taxes.
Experts familiar with the practices of leading auction houses said proposals for selling highly desirable estates can be very detailed, even down to precise budgets for marketing and public relations.
In an auction with the profit potential of the sale, a house will sometimes waive the commission it charges the sellers of the merchandise. “The estate and the family have been very much involved in all the important decisions all the way through. There have been a lot of discussions,” said Diana Phillips, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman. “There has been a partnership all the way through.”
Onassis’ executors and her children were consulted about the design and contents of the massive, 584-page catalog. Unlike other catalogs, where a highly desirable item often is featured on the cover, the catalog is deliberately understated with only Onassis’ name, the date of the sale and Sotheby’s logo on the top sheet.
Onassis’ two children wrote a short introduction:
“For our mother, history came alive through objects and paintings as well as books. Because the things she collected link her with history, and because she cared about them, they represent more than just a record of her life and travels. As they go out into the world, we hope they bring with them not only their own beauty and spirit, but some of hers as well.”
Far more revealing is a personal reminiscence by Onassis’ close friend and confidante, Nancy Tuckerman, who was the first lady’s social secretary.
The Jackie she portrays had a love of intrigue, even appearing disguised as a nanny while she and Tuckerman looked at Manhattan apartments when the then-Mrs. Kennedy decided to move to New York from Washington.
“To the extent it was possible, Jackie’s life in the White House centered around her children,” Tuckerman said. “More than anything, she wanted Caroline and John to lead normal lives.”
In her later years, Onassis kept an enormous wooden chest in her apartment with Gypsy trinkets, beaded necklaces, rings with colored stones and other items, which was dumped on the bedroom floor when her grandchildren came to visit.
“They’d deck themselves out with jewelry and put on costumes they’d make from old scarves and odd bits of material,” Tuckerman recalled.
In her essay, Tuckerman described the apartment and its decor.
“While Jackie had the practiced eye of a collector, she did not consider herself one and she acquired art that pleased her, rather than as an investment. Essentially, there was nothing grand or ostentatious about her apartment. It was inviting and comfortable, with a pleasing lived-in feeling to it. . . . Once everything was in place, she kept it that way, replacing worn upholstery or slipcovers with identical materials.”