YSL auction set to fetch €300m

A FRENCH judge yesterday refused to halt the sale of disputed Chinese bronze fountainheads as part of an auction of the estate of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his companion Pierre Berge.

The judge ordered the China-linked group, APACE, that sought to prevent the sale to pay €1,000 in fines each to Christie’s and to the firm of Pierre Berge.

The bronze heads of a rabbit and a rat disappeared from the Imperial Palace on the outskirts of Beijing when French and British forces invaded at the close of the second Opium War in 1860. The bronzes date to the Qing Dynasty (1644). They are expected to sell for up to €10m each.

Christie’s auction house said last night a Henri Matisse oil painting sold for €32.1m, a record price for a work by the French artist. The buyer was not immediately identified.

The highest price is expected to go to 1914- 1915 Picasso painting called Instruments de musique sur un gueridon, (Musical Instruments on a Table) from his cubist period.

The sale is expected to gross up to €300m. A portion of the proceeds will go to AIDS research.

Christie’s said the 1911 painting, of a vase of cowslips on a blue and yellow rug sold for euro35.9 million, including the buyer’s premium.

Saint Laurent, 71, died of brain cancer in June.