The evening sale at the Grand Palais in Paris
Christie's auctioneers begin the sale
The much anticipated sale of the art collection owned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé has broken the world record for a private collection at auction, bringing in over 300 million euros. The sale took place at the stunningly transformed Grand Palais in Paris - when Bergé arrived at the Palais he said, 'It's magic just like a film by D.W. Griffiths'. The highlight of the three-day auction was the evening sale at which seven new world records were set for artists selling at auction, incdluing Matisse, Brancusi and Duchamp.
Matisse's painting 'Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose' sold for 35,905,000 euros, a sculpture entitled 'Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.)' by Brancusi went for 29.2 million euros, Mondrian's painting 'Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir' fetched 21.6 million euros, and a Duchamp 'readymade' perfume bottle with a Man Ray photograph of the artist dressed as 'Rrose Selavy' reached a staggering 8.9 million euros.
Matisse's 'Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose', which sold for 35,905,000 euros
Brancusi's 'Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.), which sold for 29.2 million euros
Duchamp's 'Belle haleine - Eau de voilette' with a Man Ray photograph on the label, which sold for 8.9 million euros
Over 2,000 people flocked to the Grand Palais for the evening sale, including Francois Pinault, the owner of Christie's, the auction house holding the sale, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, and dealer Larry Gagosian. Several rows of Christie's staffers manned the telephones taking bids from hundreds of clients who weren't at the sale, and during the weekend leading up to the sale over 30,000 members of the public queued to view the works in this historic sale.
One of the two Chinese Qing Dynasty bronzes which fetched a combined total of euros
The sale suffered a setback when China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage wrote to Christie's to try to stop the sale of two Chinese bronzes which were part of Yves Saint Laurent's and Bergé's collection. The Qing Dynasty bronzes were looted from the Imperial palace in Beijing in 1860s and the Chinese goivernment were pressing for their return. Bergé said that he would be willing to return the heads on condition 'that the Chinese government respects the human rights of its people, gives liberty to Tibet and welcomes the Dalai Lama.' Christie's issued a statement this week saying it 'supports repatriation of cultural relics to their home country and aids in the process where possible by sourcing and bringing works of art to the auction platform to give buyers a chance to bid for them.' The two bronzes sold for a total of 31.4 million euros.
During the last day of the sale an Art Deco chair designed by Eileen Gray went for 21.9 million euros, making it the most expensive 20th-century piece of furniture. At the Old Master and Nineteenth Century Paintings and Drawings sale, another record was set when Gericault's 'Portrait d'Alfred et Elisabeth Dedreux' sold for over 9 million euros, more than the artist has ever fetched at auction.
Proceeds from the sale will go to the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation and towards research into AIDS.
To watch LuxuryCulture's tour of Yves Saint Laurent's apartment at rue de Babylone in Paris before the works were removed for the sale at Christie's, click here.
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