The U.S. Senate has been described as a “millionaire’s club,” and the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was among its wealthiest members.
Some of the San Francisco Democrat’s jewelry, art and political memorabilia will be auctioned next month at Bonhams in Los Angeles County.
The items include diamond and emerald jewelry, artwork from the glassblower Dale Chihuly and the 15th century Italian painter Neri Di Bicci, and signed books and documents from famous Democrats, including several presidents.
Feinstein, who died last year at age 90, “cherished the items she collected and decorated her homes with,” said her daughter, Katherine Feinstein.
“She would be delighted to know that her treasured pieces will be just as cherished and cared for by those whose lives she touched, and who admired her as a pioneering woman in politics,” she said in a statement.
In the final months of Feinstein’s life, she was hospitalized with shingles and suffered from encephalitis, a swelling of the brain, that caused her to miss dozens of votes in the Senate and require costly medical care.
As a debate raged in the public about whether Feinstein should step down, Katherine argued in court that Feinstein should gain more control over various trusts from her husband’s estate to cover her mounting medical bills. The senator was married to Richard Blum, a successful investment banker who died in 2022 and had three children from a prior marriage.
At issue during the family’s messy legal battle was, among other things, an appraisal of Feinstein’s jewelry collection, as well as the couple’s multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio.
A judge ordered the parties to mediation last year. The couple’s home in the exclusive Marin County community of Stinson Beach sold in December for $9.1 million, and their vacation home in Aspen, Colo., sold for more than $25 million in the spring of 2023.
Whether the October auction is a result of the mediation process was not immediately clear; attorneys for the Blums and the Feinsteins did not respond to requests for comment.
Bonhams auction house will display the Feinstein collection for four days in San Francisco and four days in Los Angeles before the Oct. 8 sale at its Sunset Boulevard location.
The auction house sold 42 works from the couple’s extensive collection of Himalayan art earlier this year. The works spanned 800 years of history and were collectively valued at more than $3 million.
Two more sales from the couple’s private collection are scheduled in October. A collection of 70 pieces of Feinstein’s jewelry will go on sale Oct. 1, and a selection of the Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian art collected by Blum and Feinstein will be sold in mid-October.
The jewelry included in the Oct. 8 sale includes a 4.14-carat diamond ring flanked by tapered baguette diamonds (estimate: $45,000 to $65,000) and a necklace with a reeflike cluster of freshwater pearls, designed for Tiffany & Co. by the daughter of Pablo Picasso (estimate: $1,500 to $2,500), which Feinstein wore at the opening session of the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
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1. 1863 painting “Vernal Falls, Yosemite Valley,” by the American landscape painter Enoch Wood Perry, which has an estimated value of $50,000 to $70,000. The auction house Bonhams said Feinstein “proudly displayed” this painting and others that depicted iconic California scenery in her D.C. home. (Enoch Wood Perry vus Bonhams) 2. The collection from the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein that goes to auction in Los Angeles in October includes a freshwater pearl necklace designed for Tiffany & Co. by Paloma Picasso, the daughter of Pablo Picasso. (Tiffany & Co. via Bonhams) 3. A Tiffany & Co. 18-karat gold necklace and earclip set from 1979 that are designed to look like rose petals. (Tiffany & Co. via Bonhams)
The auction house is also offering a 1990 letter sent to Feinstein by former President Carter after she lost the governor’s race to Republican Pete Wilson (estimate: $800 to $1,200).
Carter wrote that he and his wife, Rosalynn, thought that his reelection loss in 1980 was a “tragedy for us, but our lives since then have been more full, productive and enjoyable than we’ve ever dreamed.”
“With your stature and influence,” Carter wrote, “you and Dick can, I’m sure, have the same experience.”
Feinstein won a Senate seat two years later, in what became known as “The Year of the Woman.”
Also for sale is a photo of Feinstein with then-Vice President Joe Biden, dated 2016 (estimate: $500 to $700).
Biden wrote in the margin of the photo in Sharpie: “In all my years in public life, I’ve never met anyone with whom I’d rather work. … I love working with you and being your friend.” He signed it: “Joe.”
The catalog also includes three roll call votes, matted in chocolate brown with gold frames, from some of Feinstein’s most famous motions in the Senate (estimate: $1,000 to $2,000 each).
One shows the vote count from Feinstein’s attempted censure of President Clinton after the Senate acquitted him on impeachment charges.
Feinstein’s motion, which condemned Clinton for his “shameful, reckless and indefensible behavior” during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was tabled by the Senate majority leader.
The collection also includes a signed copy of Clinton’s 2004 memoir, “My Life” (estimate: $500 to $700).
Clinton inscribed the book to Feinstein and Blum, thanking them for “your friendship, your good work, and your help in bringing my library to life.”
Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.