Brooke Astor Home Auction Fetches $8.7M in NYC The first day of an auction of the contents of philanthropist Brooke Astor's two homes brought in $8.7 million, Sotheby's said. Sotheby's is offering the contents of both homes, 901 objects in all, including European and Asian furnishings, Old Masters, Qing Dynasty paintings, tea sets, silverware, jewelry, a porcelain menagerie, over 100 dog paintings - and even the uniforms of her domestic staff. The two-day auction continues Tuesday. Proceeds will go to institutions and charities, including the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, under a settlement negotiated by the state Attorney General's office. FILE - This undated file photo provided by Sotheby's shows a gold, a colored diamond, coral and ruby lion brooch that belonged to the late philanthropist Brooke Astor. The piece will be sold at an auction in New York of the late philanthropist's personal items which will include some 900 items to be offered Sept. 24-25 from Astor's Park Avenue duplex and her stone manor in Westchester. (AP Photo/Sotheby's, File) Close The collection had expected to fetch just $6 million to $9 million. The auction comes after a nasty family feud involving her only son, Anthony Marshall. The five-year dispute ended in March with a settlement that freed $100 million for her charities and cut by more than half the amount going to Marshall, who was convicted of taking advantage of his mother's dementia, partly by engineering changes to her will. He has appealed. The dispute had threatened to deplete the entire estate. Astor spent her life putting the fortune that her third husband, Vincent Astor, left to use where it would do the most to alleviate human misery. Her efforts won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1998. Astor died in 2007 at age 105. Sotheby's: http://www.sothebys.com