PUBLIC FINDS TREASURES IN ROBBINS'S ESTATE.

Jerome Robbins' most memorable dances for the ballet and Broadway. touched upon wide-ranging, subjects and were imbued with a strong sense of the human spirit. The same was true of the art and objects with which Robbins surrounded himself. The public got a glimpse of Robbins' personal life, and a rare opportunity to purchase mementos, in December at two sales of art and furnishings from the choreographer's estate at New York's William Doyle Galleries.

Though Robbins left the bulk of his estate to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, a few items of art and furniture were left to a beneficiary with the understanding that they would be made available to other collectors and institutions, according to sale organizer Trudy Rosato, Doyle's director of twentieth-century art. Interest from the dance world was strong, with several lots going to cultural institutions which asked to remain anonymous. "Because he was who he was, he had access to these things, and that affected prices, as did the fact that these things had been in private hands all these years," Rosato said.

Eclectic furnishings and objects, like a group of Victorian stained-glass windows and a set of limestone plates, were sold, but artworks connected with dance and Robbins himself generated the most buzz. Man, a gouache by Israeli artist Ben Shahn that had served as a backdrop for Robbins' 1961 ballet Events and was estimated at $10,000 to $15,000, sold for $19,350. And a collection of thirteen of Irene Sharaff's costume and stage designs for ballets, including Fanfare and Age of Anxiety, sold for $10,350, above an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.

Robbins' collection included drawings by Elie Nadelman, oils by Ralph Fasanella, and set and costume designs for the Ballets Russes by Leon Bakst, Mikhail Larionov and Alexander Benois. Five drawings by master cartoonist A1 Hirschfeld, a reminder of Robbins's unique place in twentieth-century pop culture, exceeded their high estimates, including a rendering of Robbins in a characteristic dance pose that sold for $6,900.