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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Richard Scrushy’s art collection sold for $549,500 at an auction today, surpassing the $521,000 estimate the 16 pieces were expected to fetch.

The highest price paid was $150,000 for an “ink and wash on paper” by Marc Chagall called “L’echelle au ciel,” or “Ladder to heaven.” The auction was held in Philadelphia at Freemans Auctioneers & Appraisers, and attracted widespread bidding via telephone and Internet. As of early Sunday evening, the price paid for the Chagall piece was the highest for any art at the auction, which included hundreds of works unrelated to Scrushy’s collection.

The art collection was seized by HealthSouth shareholders from Scrushy’s Vestavia Hills house after he was ordered to pay the company a civil court judgment of $2.8 billion.

The sum was to compensate HealthSouth for the accounting fraud that happened while Scrushy was chief executive. Proceeds from liquidating Scrushy assets are divided among Birmingham-based HealthSouth, a class of qualifying shareholders, and the attorneys who won the court judgment.

“We are delighted with the results. Freeman’s did an excellent job for us,” said John Somerville, a lawyer for HealthSouth shareholders.

The pieces received international scrutiny from collectors, with the auction gracing the cover of Freeman’s Spring 2011 guidebook.

Other notable Scrushy pieces sold Sunday were:

– A 1965 Pablo Picasso portrait of a woman in profile called Portrait de Femme de Profil that sold for $80,000.

– A Salvador Dali painting called Paradiso that went for $60,000.

– A 1939 Picasso portrait of another woman that sold for $47,500, Tete de Femme No. 5 (Portrait de Dora Maar).

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