The photo of a teenage Diana Spencer lounging with a young man was deemed inappropriate by a British newspaper. Image courtesy RR Auction.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A previously unseen press photo of a teenaged Princess Diana that a London tabloid deemed too hot to publish has sold for $18,306, the American auctioneers handling the sale said Friday.
The black-and-white image from the dawn of the 1980s shows Diana, possibly
in a ski chalet, smiling at the camera as she lies comfortably in the lap of a like-aged but unidentified young man reading a book. The photo was taken before she became princess of Wales.
By the window stands a bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky, but more intriguing are the words “not to be published” scrawled across the photo with the kind of grease pencil used by newspaper picture editors at the time.
On the back, the photo is dated Feb. 26, 1981 – two days after Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Charles and the commoner then known as Diana Spencer.
RR Auctions of Amherst, N.H., which handled the sale, said the photo came from the private Caren Archive, which acquired it seven years ago when it bought out the photo library of Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper.
The auctioneers did not identify the buyer.
British media have said the young man is Adam Russell, the great-grandson of former British prime minister Stanley Baldwin.
Internet bidding on the photo and others – including a rare autographed portrait of Albert Einstein by a New York society photographer – ran fromJan. 17 through Thursday.
Diana died in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles. She was 36.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The photo of a teenage Diana Spencer lounging with a young man was deemed inappropriate by a British newspaper. Image courtesy RR Auction.
George McGovern poster, 1972. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Hartman’s Auctioneers & Appraisers.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) – Hundreds of people braved frigid temperatures Saturday for a chance to buy books, furniture and other items once owned by three-time presidential candidate George McGovern.
A two-day estate sale at the former U.S. senator’s Sioux Falls home started at 9 a.m. Saturday. McGovern, one of the nation’s most outspoken voices for liberalism who was deeply opposed to the Vietnam War, died in October at age 90.
People began lining up for the sale as early as 4 a.m., and with only 20 to 30 visitors allowed in the house at a time, others had to wait in line for hours for their chance to get a glimpse at McGovern’s items.
“It’s surreal. It’s very emotional in some respects. You can see the character and personality of this man in this house,” said Matt Arntz, a 58-year-old attorney from Dayton, Ohio, who drove 14 hours so he could get a close look at McGovern’s possessions and talk to friends and fans of the Democrat.
Arntz is planning to write a biography about McGovern, who lost the 1972 presidential race to Richard Nixon in a historic landslide. Arntz worked on that campaign.
Sitting in a room filled with political memorabilia and McGovern’s books, Arntz was working to pare down some of his selections. He already had a box full of personal photos and books McGovern had read and made notes in.
“That will help me understand his thinking some time ago when he read this,” he said of the handwritten notes.
A lot of books were for sale, including some of McGovern’s own titles, many of them out of print and a few autographed. Other items included antique furniture pieces, fine china, campaign buttons and photographs of McGovern with other Senate leaders.
McGovern’s daughter Ann McGovern told The Associated Press earlier that the family decided to hold an estate sale over an auction with the hope that people with a connection to the former senator would be able to buy the items.
Gordon Locken, 61, of Aberdeen, South Dakota, and his wife, Jan, 59, waited in line for nearly two hours Saturday. They ended up paying $32 for two books that had handwritten notes from the authors to McGovern.
“If he read every book, he did a wonderful job,”Gordon Locken said of the many books that filled shelves in the nondescript home.
Although too young to have ever voted for McGovern, 26-year-old Tiffany Rolfing said she liked him because he stood up for what he believed in. She came with her boyfriend just to look at the items the political heavyweight once owned.
“We thought it would be cool to check out all the photos with celebrities,” Rolfing said.
Proceeds from the sale of copies of McGovern’s book An American Journey will be donated to the hunger relief organization Feeding South Dakota, which McGovern championed.
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Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton.
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AP-WF-01-26-13 2123GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
George McGovern poster, 1972. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Hartman’s Auctioneers & Appraisers.
