Washington Items Top $1 Million

A locket bearing a 2-inch portrait of George Washington and a lock of his hair was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder Friday for $1.2 million--about twice the previous record for a miniature portrait.

“When the price crept toward a million dollars, you could have heard a pin drop; it was as though everyone inhaled at once,” said Joel Gunderson, a spokesman for Christie’s auction house.

The jewel-like portrait was painted on Oct. 3, 1789, and placed in a locket as a gift for Martha Washington. The auction house was confident the hair encased in the locket was George Washington’s but acknowledged it had not been DNA tested.

The portrait by Irish-born John Ramage shows a uniformed 57-year-old general with powdered, white hair, but the other side of the locket holds an inch of plaited, chestnut-colored hair. The portrait was the first painted of Washington following his inauguration as president in April 1789, the auction house said.