Three paintings by Norman Rockwell celebrating homey, small-town America, among the most popular of his 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday morning for a total of nearly $57.8 million, about twice their high estimate.

The auction house’s York Avenue salesroom in Manhattan, filled with American art dealers and collectors, went dead quiet while a tense nine-and-a-half-minute bidding battle played out for “Saying Grace,” one of Rockwell’s best-loved scenes. It brought $46 million, well over its high estimate of $20 million and the most ever paid at auction for his work.

Two contenders on different telephones — one represented by Elizabeth Goldberg, director of American art for Sotheby’s, and the other, Yasuaki Ishizaka, managing director of Sotheby’s Japan — tried to buy the painting, which ended up selling to Ms. Goldberg’s unidentified client.