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Autograph letter from Jacqueline Kennedy, unsigned, penned in blue ballpoint on the reverse of a one-page TLS sent to her by interior design specialist Lee Barrett, 7.25 x 10.5, dated February 12, 1970, sending Jackie photos of wicker chairs, discussing fabric options (including samples for her Greece porch), coordinating curtain fabric, and arranging to have a custom mattress made for her. Jackie’s handwritten response on the reverse, which she divides by subject, reads:
“Spa chair is perfect, in natural. Can’t cover it yet as aren’t sure of room color! I am sending picture to Greece if that’s OK.
For the outside furniture / You weren’t crazy to send me the chintz’s – I asked for them! But as I don’t know what the room it opens off will look like yet, & I may have a sort of day bed there, I can’t decide on cushions, though I adore these Indian cottons. I return them, not to keep them, but will probably ask to see them again, thank you.
Austrian shade / for dining room. Please don’t make it shirred like an Austrian shade. I hate that. So it will hang straight (or will it be all wrinkled. Either the least shirring possible, or like a window shade that pulls down, with no pull.” Jackie adds a small sketch of the desired shade style. “The pull could be a ring on the other side, & a neat edging, or gallo[o]n, or fringe like present curtains.
Bedding / One guest bed (brown mattress) near window – is very soft – plain covering / other [guest bed] (pale blue mattress) is firm – (white flowers on blue back…). The firm blue one away from window is ideal, so let’s get that.” Kennedy finishes the letter in the upper margin: “Shall we ship the outdoor chairs & ottomans – & the spa chair when ready to Greece, keeping the cushion here till I decide on material. It might be quicker, so call Nancy when Spa chair is ready. If it’s too complicated, forget it.”
Included is a short handwritten letter from Kennedy to Barrett, unsigned, no date [likely an accompaniment to the long letter], penned in ballpoint on an off-white 4.25 x 6.25 sheet: “One more thing – For Greece, I would like, for the hall, a large hall porter’s chair, in natural color, rattan or whatever, not painted. Not looking too much like Walter Wicker Wonderland, but it doesn’t have to be old – the one at the Window Shop looks too beaten. Could you send me photos?” Kennedy adds a small sketch of the chair to the left side. In overall fine condition.
By around 1970, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had become a regular presence on Aristotle Onassis’s private Greek island of Skorpios, where she retreated after their 1968 marriage in search of security and seclusion following years of public tragedy. At the heart of her time there was the so-called ‘Pink House,’ a beachside residence that served as her personal sanctuary within the island’s carefully designed compound, which also included a main villa, chapel, and secluded coves. She spent extended periods on Skorpios with her children, enjoying a rare degree of privacy and leisure, though she never lived there full-time, instead dividing her life between Greece, Paris, and New York. Her association with the island endured throughout her marriage to Onassis, from 1968 until his death in 1975, during which Skorpios became both a symbol of her reinvention as ‘Jackie O’ and a refuge from the pressures of public life.
From the personal collection of a lifelong collector, teacher, and traveler with a passion for world history. His collecting years ranged from the 1970s to the present day, meaning that several of the premier pieces have not been on the market in decades.
