Roman mythological marble sarcophagus panel sold for $1.9 million at Sotheby's on June 8, 2011

By Eric Russ, Art Market Views contributor

A marble sarcophagus depicting the rape of Persephone, dating from around 190 A.D. surpassed a $600,000 high estimate at Sotheby’s last week, selling for $1.9 million. The elaborate coffin, emblazoned with a toga-clad procession, was the top lot in a robust $11.3 million sale held June 8. Ninety percent of lots found buyers.

Also popular: a first century 13-inch tall marble head of a pensive, wizened Greek poet, likely Hesiod, estimated to sell for up to $500,000.  Three phone bidders vied for the bearded bust, and all were outbid by a man standing in the back of the salesroom who landed the work for $1.7 million.

The same unidentified buyer’s shopping spree included an Attic red-figured cup depicting a man holding a staff, attributed to the Brygos painter, circa 470 B.C, which made $50,000, topping a $7,000 presale estimate. He also snagged an Attic red-figured column krater with three men and a horse, circa 450 B.C., paying $116,500, more than twice the high estimate.

Both works were among a large collection of Green pottery being sold by New York artists Sideo Fromboluti and Nora Speyer, assembled in the 1960s and 1970s.

A life-size Roman imperial bronze portrait of a head of a man with dramatic eyebrows and wavy hair from the early 2^nd century A.D. sold for $872,500, also more than double a $350,000 high estimate. The buyer was a European private collector, according to Sotheby’s.

Thousand-year-old Egyptian antiquities also showed muscle. The first Egyptian lot in the sale, a perioditite figure of the Horus Falcon, from the 1540 B.C., sold for $266,500. The priciest Egyptian work was an almond-eyed wood mummy mask circa 1075-600 B.C. which sold for $812,500.

The sale’s momentum was capped off by the last lot: a pair of Ottoman vessels—a dish and jug in blues—dating from circa late 16^th/early 17^th Century. Bidding clipped past the $9,000 high estimate, selling for $80,500.

Marble head of a Greek poet sold for $1.7 million at Sotheby's on June 8, 2011

Roman bronze portrait of a man sold for $872,500 at Sotheby's on June 8, 2011

Egyptian wooden mummy mask sold for $812,500 at Sotheby's on June 8, 2011