NEW YORK.- The much-heralded auction of The Bill Blass Collection concluded today at Sotheby’s with a staggering total of $13,619,606. Collectors, designers and art and antiques dealers, as well as friends and admirers of Bill Blass competed for a piece of the legendary designer’s legacy, driving the total to more than double the $6.4 million high estimate with 99% of the lots offered finding buyers. The results were a fitting tribute to the unerring taste of the arbiter of American style who died last year at the age of 79. The proceeds of the sale will go to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Hospital AIDS Care Center.

"What a great privilege it was to sell Bill Blass’s Collection. He was a wonderful and generous man and I only wish I had known him better," commented Jamie Niven, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s and auctioneer for the sale. "His impeccable eye as a collector was evident throughout, and collectors and admirers responded with great enthusiasm from the opening of the reception to the very last session of the auction."

The sale offered Mr. Blass’s exceptional and broad ranging collection of antiquities, English furniture, Old Master drawings, architectural models and drawings, and other fine and decorative arts from both his house in Connecticut and apartment in New York. Bidding was fierce across the board, with a Pair of Russian Ormolu and Bronze Two-Light Wall Lights, circa 1880, Attributed to the Kasli Foundry bringing the top price of the Collection. Estimated to sell for $20/30,000, collectors entered a brisk bidding battle driving the price for these whimsical bears which once adorned the wall of Mr. Blass’s bedroom in New York to $321,600 (Lot 201).

During the evening sale on Tuesday, a Marble Portrait Head of Man, Roman Imperial, late 1st century B.C./Early 1st Century A.D., brought the top price of the session, $209,600, against a high estimate of $120,000 (Lot 44), and Isamu Noguchi’s Cross Form, Beginning Dance from 1955-1958 sold for $153,600, well above the $80,000 high estimate (Lot 103). Taking center stage in the large-scale living room of Mr. Blass’s New York apartment were a Pair of Regency and Parcel-Gilt Daybeds, Circa 1810 which sold for $164,800, well above the $30/50,000 estimate (Lot 137). Also impressive was a Fine and Rare Regency Gilt-Metal-Mounted Writing and Reading Stand, circa 1810 which almost certainly was formerly in the Speaker’s House in the Palace of Westminster in London that sold for $108,000 (Lot 58, est. $40/60,000); and a Study for Perseus from the Perseus series: Atlas Turned to Stone, a gouache, ink and wash on brown paper by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, which brought $142,400 (Lot 33, est. $25/35,000).

Mr. Blass filled his home with a vast, eclectic collection of eye-catching pieces, ranging from an Italian Blue and White Painted Wood Architectural Model that sold for $102,000 (Lot 56, est. $20/30,000), to a Large Patinated Bronze Rendition of Napoleon’s Column. This reduction of the celebrated monumental bronze erected to the glory of Napoleon I in the Place Vendome, Paris sold for $176,000 (Lot 180, est. $15/20,000).

Additionally, the Austrian Neoclassical Mahogany Circular Library Table, Circa 1820 and the Set of Six Continental Neoclassical Mahogany and Fruitwood Side Chairs, Circa 1830 from Mr. Blass’s dining room each sold for $84,000 (Lots 294-295, est. $20/30,000 each).

Many lots throughout the sale sparked heated competition which drove the selling price to multiples of the presale estimates. Designs for the Outer Compartments of the Wellington Shield: Ten Drawings by Thomas Stothard which had been estimated to sell for $30,000 to $40,000, were competed for by multiple bidders and sold for $114,000 (Lot 4). A William and Mary Oyster-Veneered Laburnum Linen Chest on Stand, estimated at $12,000 to $18,000, brought $84,000 (Lot 77). An Unusual Silvered-metal and Petrified-Wood Table in the form of a tree trunk, one of Bill Blass’s favorite pieces, was estimated at $7,000 to $9,000 and brought $66,000.

Three additional works of art from The Bill Blass Collection will be offered in forthcoming sales: Pablo Picasso’s Nu couché, a black chalk on canvas drawing (est. $5/7 million), in the evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Wednesday, November 5; Claudio Bravo’s White Package, an oil on chipboard painting (est. $90/120,000), with Latin American Art on the evening of Wednesday November 19; and a large-scale trompe l’oeil painting by Jacobus Biltius (est. $150/200,000) with Important Old Master Paintings on Thursday, January 22, 2004.