BEDFORD, N.Y. — Of the nearly 650 lots offered in Butterscotch Auctions’ Fall Estates sale on December 4, one of the biggest surprises of the day was a Cypriot limestone head of a goddess, circa Third-Second Century BCE, which had been estimated at $3/5,000 but which sold — after considerable competition from bidders in the United States and overseas — for $26,670, including premium. The 10½-inch-tall head had once belonged to General Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904), the first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and whose collection was purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1872. It was published by Mary B. Comstock & Cornelius C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone: The Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1976) and exhibited at the University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Albany in 1974. According to Brendan Ryan at Butterscotch, it sold to an international buyer. This sale will be discussed in greater length in an upcoming issue.