The three-day sale of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé at the Grand Palais, offered by Christie’s in association with Pierre Bergé & Associates auctioneers on February 23′5, realized in total $483,835,144. A total of 95.5 percent of lots sold by lot, and 93 percent sold by value. This historic sale set a world record for the most valuable private collection sold at auction, was the highest grossing sale in Europe on record and set multiple world records for Impressionist and Modern Art, Twentieth Century decorative arts, silver, sculpture and works of art.
One of the most exceptional and significant collections of art in private hands, it generated unprecedented interest from bidders throughout the world and the presale estimates for both the sale as a whole and the individual works were significantly exceeded.
The top lot of the sale was “Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose,” 1911 by Henri Matisse, which sold for $46.4 million, the highest price ever achieved for a work by the artist at auction. A total of 61 works of art sold for more than one million euros. Numerous world auction records were set in each sale, and in almost every part of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s collection, a tribute to their discerning eye for provenance and museum quality.
The proceeds of the sale will go to the Pierre Bergé⁙ves Saint Laurent Foundation, created to prolong the history of the House of Yves Saint Laurent, and to a new foundation that will be set up for scientific research and the fight against AIDS.
On February 23, at the inaugural session of the sale, the most significant collection of Impressionist and Modern art in private hands sold for a total of $266 million, a world record for a private collection at auction and the highest total achieved for any Impressionist and Modern art sale in Europe. At the sale, 25 lots sold for more than $1 million and seven world records were set for artists at auction, including Matisse, Brancusi, Mondrian, de Chirico, Duchamp, Klee and Ensor.
In addition to the top lot by Matisse, the artist’s expressive “Le Danseur,” 1937″8, painted in Matisse’s 70th year and one of a series of experimental collages, and the first time that he was carving directly into color, sold for $8.7 million, and “Nu au bord de la mer,” 1909, sold for $10.6 million.
“Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.),” a magnificent example of Constantin Brancusi’s earliest and enigmatic sculptures in wood, sold for $37.7 million, a world record for the artist at auction. Bought by Saint Laurent and Bergé in the 1970s, the first owner of this sculpture was the painter Fernand Léger, who directly received it in exchange for a painting sometime after 1918, the year he and Brancusi met.
Three abstract paintings by Piet Mondrian, which each belong to key stages in the artist’s work, and express degrees of tension between line, form and color and are moving testimonies to the artist’s pursuit for purity and equilibrium, were all sold above their high estimates. “Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir,” 1922, sold for $27.9 million, a world record for the artist at auction; “Composition avec grille 2,” 1918, sold for $18.6 million, and “Composition I,” 1920, sold for $9 million.
Léger’s great mechanical paintings of 1918 and 1919, painted during one of his most brilliant periods, drew significant attention. “Composition, dans l’usine,” 1918, sold for $7,185,027. “La tasse de thé,” 1921, brought $14.8 million.
Other works, such as the elegant “Dancers and Sphere” by Alexander Calder, sold for $2 million. The ready-made masterpiece “La Belle Haleine †Eau de Voilette” by Marcel Duchamp, with the assistance by Man Ray, in 1921, witnessed fierce bidding in the room and realized $11.5 million, nearly nine times its estimate and setting a world auction record for the artist.
Elsewhere in the sale, James Ensor’s monumental “Le désespoir de Pierrot,” the most important work of art by the artist to be presented at auction in the last 25 years, and since the very same composition was last seen at auction in the early 1980s, sold for $6.4 million, a world record for the artist at auction.
Three works of art were acquired by two of the most important French museums in Paris, Museé d’Orsay and the Centre Georges Pompidou: “Les Lilas” by Edouard Vuillard and “Au Conservatoire” by James Ensor, and “Il Ritornante” by Giorgio de Chirico, respectively.
The sale of Old Master and Nineteenth Century paintings and drawings on February 24 totaled $28.7 million, with 75 percent of lots sold by lot and 90 percent sold by value. Drawings from the Nineteenth Century, predominantly portraits by Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, generated significant interest and “Portrait d’Alfred et Elisabeth Dedreux” by Theodore Gericault, the figurehead of French Romantic painting, was the top lot of the sale and realized $11.6 million, a world record for the artist at auction. Six new world auction records for artists were set.
Major highlights of the sale included Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ elegant “Portrait de la comtesse de la Rue,” 1890, which brought $2.6 million, a world record for the artist at auction
Jacques-Louis David’s “Portrait d’homme de profil,” which has long been thought to be a self-portrait, sold for $746,580, and Arnold Böcklin’s “Odysseus and Polypheme,” 1986, sold for $746,580, a world record for a work on paper by the artist at auction.
The afternoon sale of silver, miniatures and objets vertu on February 24 totaled $25.7 million and set a new world auction record for a silver sale. A total of 100 percent of the works sold to an audience of more than 1,000 people. The star lot of the session, which saw 111 breath-taking lots of silver, silver gilt and gold come under the hammer, was the Osterode cup, a silver -gilt quadruple cup, 1649, which sold for $1.1 million. The collection of Hanover cups alone, one of the most exciting collections of early German silver to appear on the market for years, totaled $7.89 million. Collectors also bid fiercely for drinking cups in the form of lions, bears, horses, deer, a unicorn, bull, swan, owl and even an elephant with soldiers in the castle turret on its back.
The February 24 evening sale of a group of Art Deco treasures realized a total of $76.5 million, a world record for a collection of Twentieth Century decorative arts. A total of 95 percent of lots sold by lot, and 98 percent sold by value. The star lot of the evening was Eileen Gray’s “Dragons” armchair, circa 1917‱919, which achieved $28.3 million, a world record for a work of Twentieth Century decorative art at auction, and a world record for the artist at auction. Ten works of art sold for more than $1 million, and the auction saw a total of 12 artist records established.
Sculpture and Works of Art
The afternoon session of the sculpture and works of art sale on February 25 realized a total of $31.3 million. Ninety-five percent sold by lot, and 98 percent sold by value. The top lot was a Sixteenth Century bronze double head of Janus, unusual in both its iconography and its scale, which attracted committed bidding from a wide range of private and trade buyers and sold for more than $2.6 million, a record for a Sixteenth Century French bronze. Six works of art sold for more than $1 million.
Major highlights of the sale included a group of parcel-gilt white painted carved wood allegorical busts representing the four continents, French, from the Eighteenth Century, which sold for $1 million; a silver gilt and ruby mounted rock crystal vase, Milanese, from the late Sixteenth or early Seventeenth Century, which was formerly in the French royal collection, sold for $684,473; and a bronze figure of Hermaphrodite attributed to Gianfrancesco Susini sold for $808,688, a world record for a bronze by the artist.
The evening session of the sculpture and works of art sale on February 25, which included a wide range of Asian art, ceramics, furniture, Islamic art and antiquities and conveyed Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s taste for exceptional decorative works, realized a total of $55.4 million. The top lots were exceptionally rare bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit made for the Zodiac Fountain of the Emperor Qianlong’s Summer Palace in China, which each hammered down at $20.3 million. The sale of the two lots, however, remains in question as published reports have indicated that the successful bidder, Cai Mingchao, never intended to pay for the items, but bid on them to essentially block the sale of items he considered national treasures belonging to China.
In a video clip hosted on a website, Danwei.org, Mingchao stated “every Chinese would have done the same as I did. It’s just that I got the opportunity. I have fulfilled my duty.” Christie’s declined to comment on the status of the sculptures.
Five works of art sold for more than $1 million.
Other major highlights of the sale included an important gilt and red lacquered wood figure of Buddha, China, Ming dynasty, Sixteenth Century, which sold for $404,997, and an over-life-sized male marble torso, circa First⁓econd Century AD, which brought $1.6 million.
Prices reported include the buyer’s premium. For information, www.Christies.com or +33 1 40 76 85 85.
