Classic art triumphant, Irene Roosevelt Aitken totals: $28,869,005 │ Classic Week totals: $110,004,491

Classic art triumphant. That's the market message of the past four weeks as Christie's completed two hugely successful sales series of classic art. The 12 auctions totaled almost $140 million and featured pictures, drawings, furniture, sculpture, antiquities, the entire range of decorative arts, as well as books and manuscripts. The Irene Roosevelt Aitken Collection, featuring five sales offering the contents of one of the last great treasure houses of New York, totaled $28,869,005, and was 96 percent sold by lot, and 172 percent hammer and premium against low estimate. Bidders and buyers came from 34 nations across the globe. The Aitken apartment displayed the refinement and grandeur of the 18th century that included British and French society portraits, Meissen porcelain figures, one of the world's greatest collections of gilt-bronze and blue john