Boston site auctions outtakes from Kennedy wedding in Newport

Never-before-published outtakes from John F. Kennedy's Newport wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier are being auctioned by a Boston auction house this month.
Taken by Fall River freelance photographer Arthur Borges, the 13 negatives were found in his darkroom after he died in 1993. Borges had been hired as a backup photographer for the 1953 Kennedy wedding.
Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction in Boston, said he believes that Borges took hundreds of wedding-day photos "and left behind these few."
Bidding, which started Sept. 26 and reached $3,141 by 4 p.m. Tuesday, has "already surpassed our consignors expectations, and we expect it to soar," Livingston said. The online auction will end sometime after 6 p.m. Oct. 15.
Already in 1953, "Senator Kennedy and his beautiful wife were media darlings," Livingston said Tuesday. "You can see the policemen holding back the crowds. It was the society event of the year. It's mayhem," he said.
Borges, "a blue-collar guy," lived in Fall River and worked at Firestone. "He was there professionally. He's got opposite angles to the ones taken by Life magazine."
The Life photos show the couple cutting a cake outdoors. A Borges photo shows the couple cutting a cake indoors.
"Two Boston-area bakeries still fight to this day over who made the cake for Kennedy's wedding," Livingston said. He believes the indoor cake was for the family and the cake pictured in the Life photo was for the huge reception outdoors.
"The thing that you'll notice, in these outtakes, or whatever they are, they're posing the wedding party on that hill, and our guy is getting them in between moments, where they're laughing. The wind is blowing Kennedy brothers' hair all around. It's just great." In another one, Jackie's eyes "lock right into our photographer, Arthur, right outside the chapel. She's glowing."
The auction house, which has been in business since 1980, has sold other Kennedy memorabilia. The white Lincoln in which the Kennedys rode to the Air Force base in Fort Worth before flying to Dallas on that fateful morning in 1963 was auctioned last October for $318,000.
One lot was a collection of letters from JFK to the family of Harold W. Marney, one of two crewmembers killed when their PT-109 was destroyed by a Japanese ship, as well as the Purple Heart awarded to Marney. "This letter is to offer my deepest sympathy to you for the loss of your son, Kennedy wrote in one of the letters, in 1943. "I realize that there is nothing that I can say can make your sorrow less; particularly as I know him; and I know what a great loss he must be to you and your family." That lot sold for $200,000 in a live, gaveled sale on Sept. 19, Livingston said.
"We have several institutional clients, university libraries, private collectors, people who have an affinity for the Kennedy family," Livingston said. "A lot like this speaks to a lot of different people than maybe our normal typical auction," he said.
"With worldwide attention on these photos," he expected the bidding to be "very vigorous."