Arts: Record Auction

With the auction room jammed and an overflow crowd standing at the red velvet barrier rope to be admitted. Manhattan’s leading auction house. Parke-Bernet. last week auctioned all but the last of the fabulous contents of the Rovensky Fifth Avenue mansion (TIME, Jan. 21). Bids for the art collection, including $69,000 for a pair of Boucher classic allegories, totaled $1,264,410. Mrs. Rovensky’s two Oriental pearl necklaces (which were once exchanged for Carder’s present Fifth Avenue headquarters), now considered to be worth only one-tenth their original value, still brought $181,000. Her 213.1 carat diamond necklace was knocked down to Manhattan Jeweler Julius Furst for $385,000,highest price ever paid for any item at a U.S. auction. By week’s end, with the Rovensky library still to be sold, the total auction stood at $2,387,275, an alltime U.S. record.