The YSL/Pierre Bergé sale: Scattered to the winds

The auction of a great French collection is likely to make art-market history BEHIND an unassuming courtyard door off the rue de Babylone on the rive gauche in Paris, an art-and-design collection like no other awaits dispersal. Yves Saint Laurent, a French fashion designer who died last June at the age of 71, and Pierre Berge, his business and personal partner, assembled the collection together over 50 years. On February 23rd, in an auction that will last three days, Christie’s will start bringing down the hammer on 733 objects. This is likely to be the biggest single-owner sale in auction history and, potentially, a coup for the Paris art market, which recently suffered the humiliation of being overtaken, in auction turnover, by Hong Kong (New York and London still rank first and second). Saint Laurent’s grand salon lies at the end of an oval lacquered hallway. A glance to one side of the long rectangular room takes in a large cubist Picasso, a delicate painting of a countess by Jean ... (link)