The auction of art, jewelry, and memorabilia owned by Frank and Barbara Sinatra, organized by Sotheby's, was received with such enthusiasm that many of the items sold above the estimated price.
This was the case with the portrait of the singer and actor painted in 1973 by Norman Rockwell, "Sinatra: An American Classic (Portrait of Frank Sinatra)", with a value of between 80,000 and 120,000 dollars, and which nevertheless reached a hammer price of $560,000.
With fees and taxes included, the amount to be paid by the painting's new owners was $687,000, more than 5 times its maximum estimate.
In total, 123 objects owned by the emblematic singer will go on sale at the auction, which they have named "Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra" and with which a panorama of the life of the couple is offered.
Works painted by Sinatra himself were also well received and one of several untitled presented, inspired by Piet Mondrian's style with squares and rectangles in red, blue, yellow and grey, sold for $100,000 when its top price had been estimated at $15,000.
A bust by Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj, "Centurion," from 1944, rose easily to $130,000, or $162,500 with commissions and taxes, five times the $30,000 maximum value it had been given.
A valuable work of art by the American painter Walt Kuhn, "Girl with Turban (Zuleika)", with an estimated value between 300,000 and 500,000 dollars, remained within the expected range when it sold for 495,000 dollars, despite being a favorite painting by Barbara Sinatra.
Some of the legendary singer's clothes also stood out, such as the blue satin jacket with the "US Drinking Team" embroidery, made for Sinatra and whose similar design he also distributed among his closest friends when they went out to dinner.
The jacket had been given a maximum value of $500, but constant bidding led to a final price of $35,000, 70 times more than expected.
Other items that drew the most attention were the copy of the final script for "From Here to Eternity" (1953), for which Sinatra won his only Oscar, which sold for $35,000, $26,000 above the highest estimate. House optimist.
Sinatra's custom golf clubs also fetched above estimate, selling for $27,500, while a photograph of US Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon signed by all of them nearly quintupled its estimate and hit the $68,750.
Among her jewelry, she stood out with, a gold choker decorated with a large emerald surrounded by diamonds, which fetched $30,000, quadrupling the maximum value of $7,000 that Sotheby's experts had given her.
The one that raised the most expectation of Barbara Sinatra's precious stones was that of the imposing ring with which Frank Sinatra proposed to his fourth and last wife, a diamond of more than 20 carats that was sold last Tuesday at an auction dedicated to important jewelry for 1.7 million dollars.
A portion of the auction proceeds will go to the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center in Rancho Mirage, California, United States, a non-profit organization founded by the couple in 1986.
