Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994), American First Lady from 1961 to 1963 and subsequently the wife of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis from 1968 to 1975, exercised a degree of influence on the post-war American jewellery market that few private clients have matched. The pieces associated with her, and the auction sale of her estate in 1996, both shifted the secondary market and shaped retail taste for a generation.

The White House years

The jewellery worn during the White House period was largely understated by the standards of the office. The principal items associated with that period are the triple-strand simulated-pearl necklace by Kenneth Jay Lane, worn at numerous public occasions and now at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and the Schlumberger-for-Tiffany enamel and gold bracelets, of which she owned a celebrated set. The diamond and gold pin given by John F. Kennedy on the birth of John F. Kennedy Jr in 1960, and the Van Cleef & Arpels strawberry brooches, are the other widely catalogued items from the period. Her preference for daytime simplicity — a single brooch, the Lane pearls, gold ear-clips — became the template for American First Lady dress for the following decades and was widely copied at retail.

The Onassis years

The marriage to Onassis in 1968 brought a quite different jewellery wardrobe. The most-cited piece is the 40.42-carat Lesotho III diamond, a Harry Winston-cut marquise from a Lesotho rough that Onassis had Van Cleef & Arpels mount as a ring, given to her in 1968. The 47.14-carat ruby and diamond pieces by Van Cleef & Arpels, the long ruby and diamond ear-pendants, the gold and turquoise Greek-key suite and the Van Cleef & Arpels cabochon emerald and diamond earrings are the principal Onassis-period commissions. The Van Cleef & Arpels relationship was particularly close; the firm's Paris workshop produced a substantial portion of the named-provenance Onassis pieces.

Other commissions and gifts

The Maharani of Jaipur necklace gift, the Bulgari gold and diamond suites of the late 1970s, the Schlumberger "Two Bees" brooch and the David Webb cabochon and gold work of the 1970s and 1980s are widely documented in the surviving photographs. She is also associated with several Tiffany & Co. commissions through the Schlumberger studio, then a Tiffany associated brand, and with smaller commissions from American studio jewellers including Elsa Peretti.

Influence on the trade

The Kennedy-Onassis influence on American retail jewellery taste worked in two waves. The White House period drove demand for understated daytime jewellery, single brooches, single-strand pearls and gold ear-clips, in a market that had been moving in the more elaborate direction of the 1950s. The Onassis period drove demand for serious coloured-stone work and Van Cleef & Arpels in particular at the highest tier. The 1996 estate sale (see separate entry) crystallised both effects: prices realised at the sale far exceeded estimates and led the market into a cycle of celebrity-provenance premium-pricing that has continued, with adjustments, ever since.