It is a clear homage to perhaps the most iconic White House photograph.

Almost 46 years after the world first saw two-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr playing under the Oval Office desk as his father worked, the White House has released a picture of Sasha Obama, 8, hiding behind a sofa as President Obama reads briefing papers at the same desk.

According to the White House, Sasha is sneaking up on her father as he nears the end of a working day behind the Resolute desk, which was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879.

The original photograph, taken in October 1963, a month before President Kennedy was assassinated, shows John Jr peering out from under the desk as his father, like Mr Obama, reviews briefing papers. It was a photograph that helped to promote the image of Kennedy’s Camelot — the youthful President running the country with a young family playing at his side in the White House.

The Obamas have sought to portray the same image and the current President has often said that the greatest joy of living at the White House is being able to work and live inside the same building as his children, Sasha, and Malia, 11.

Earlier this year the White House again drew on the images of the Kennedy children playing around the Resolute desk to mark Mr Obama’s first hundred days in office.

Officials released a series of photographs showing Mr Obama peering into the same section that John Jr had looked out from, while his older sister, Caroline Kennedy, looked on and laughed.

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