October Auction Block
By • October 7, 2025 0 471
A letter from Frank Sinatra about the kidnapping of his son sold for over $20,000. Other items: paintings by Alice Neel, Zeinab Al Sageny and Max Weyl; and a pair of diamond earrings by Harry Winston designer Jacques Timey.
Bonhams
An Autographed Letter from Frank Sinatra About the Kidnapping of His Son
Sold for: $20,480
This six-page typed letter signed by Frank Sinatra, on his own letterhead, begins: “Dear Father Schmit, Mrs. Sinatra and I were disturbed by your letter of June 27, 1964, written on behalf of Barry Keenan and Joseph Amsler,” the convicted kidnappers of Frank Sinatra Jr. Smith, a prison chaplain, had requested that Sinatra forgive the pair. In a 2018 “Antiques Roadshow” episode, the letter was called the best Sinatra letter a specialist had ever seen.
Christie’s
Estimate: $300,000–$500,000
Sold for: $571,500
Part of Christie’s “Post-War to Present” auction, this signed oil painting by Pennsylvania-born and -trained portraitist Alice Neel (1900-1984) sold for significantly above its high estimate. Acquired from the artist’s estate, the painting dates to 1946. Bagley was a Greenwich Village documentary cinematographer.
Freeman’s | Hindman
Harry Winston, Jacques Timey Diamond Swirl Earrings
Screenshot
Estimate: $12,000–$18,000
Sold for: $23,040
These swirl-shaped earrings, each one inch long, display round diamonds weighing a total of 9 to 9.5 carats, pavé-set in 18-karat yellow gold. From the collection of Phyllis and Fred Pressman, the earrings are stamped “WINSTON 750,” a maker’s mark of designer Jacques Timey, active in the 1960s and ’70s.
Doyle
Estimate: $4,000–$6,000
Sold for: $44,800
This untitled oil on panel, showing a woman rower, was painted around 1973 by Egyptian artist Zeinab Al Sageny, born in Cairo in 1930. The paintings of Al Sageny, who earned a Ph.D. in art education from Helwan University in 1978, typically depict mothers and children in rural Egyptian settings on or near the Nile.
The Potomack Company
Little River from Rosslyn, 1912
Estimate: $10,000–$15,000
Sold for: $47.875
This framed oil by Max Weyl (1837-1914) sold for well over twice its high estimate. Painted in 1912, it shows a south-facing view from the Rosslyn, Virginia, shore, across from D.C. At the time, the channel between Roosevelt Island and the Virginia shore was referred to as “Little River.” Weyl, who apprenticed as a watchmaker in Germany, immigrated to America in 1853 and opened a jeweler’s store on 7th Street NW in Washington, D.C., four years later.
