How Jackie K turned down marriage to Lord Harlech
AN auction of more than 500 “treasures” belonging to a Gwynedd baron has sold for almost £2.6m – more than double the estimate.
Furniture, paintings, a historic library, jewellery and even a vintage motor car and motorcycle were among the 531 items belonging to the fifth Baron Harlech that went under the hammer.
Every single item sold during the marathon 10-hour auction, held at Bonham’s sale rooms in Bond Street, London, stunning the auction house who said it was an “extremely rare event”.
The sale total was £2,599,038 – more than two and a half times the pre-sale estimate.
One of the items was a letter written by Jackie Kennedy turning down a marriage proposal from Lord Harlech – whose family home, Glyn Cywarch, was in Talsarnau. He sent the message just months after her husband, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963.
The Kennedy-Harlech Papers – the heartfelt personal letters between Jackie Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore, Lord Harlech – sold in the room to a private buyer for £100,000.
Lord Harlech was a childhood friend of the president and served as Britain’s ambassador to the US between 1961 and 1965, becoming close friends with the Kennedy couple.
He proposed to Jackie Kennedy, but she turned him down and married wealthy shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis instead, but the two remained close friends.
Other highlights of the auction included a newly-discovered portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, court painter to Elizabeth I, which sold for £269,000 against an estimate of £60,000-80,000.
The portrait, painted in 1597, portrays Ellen Maurice, a prominent Welsh heiress and Harlech ancestor, whose pearls and jewellery are worth the equivalent of £1m in today’s market.
Two remarkable Elizabeth I joined oak three-tier buffets, circa 1580-1600, made £140,500 against an estimate of £35,000-45,000.
While Irish artist Daniel Quigley’s portrait of The Godolphin Arabian, one of three Eastern stallions from which all modern racehorses descend, sold for more than five times its estimate, at £100,000.
A 1936 Rapier 10Hp Tourer, a rare British sports car, one of only 300 built, also went for £31,500, having been estimated at £20,00025,000. Bonhams UK deputy chairman, Harvey Cammell said: “A white glove 100% sold auction is an extremely rare event and we are delighted with the result.
“The Harlech sale had everything one could wish for in a Country House sale.
“Bonhams made two hugely important discoveries which have generated international interest: the historic Kennedy-Harlech letters which provided new insights into the life of one of the most famous figures of the second half of the 20th Century, and the rare Elizabethan portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, court painter to Elizabeth I.
“With Elizabethan oak furniture of the highest quality, an important library of antiquarian books, and even a barn-find classic Lagonda motor car, the auction’s success demonstrates the global appeal of a British Country House single owner collection.”
Money from the sale will go towards a fund for the restoration of Glyn Cywarch (known as Glyn) which Jasset, the seventh Lord Harlech, inherited on the death of his father in February 2016.