The Sale of the Century: Collection Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé

One of the largest single-owner sales of all time is hitting the auction block on February 23, 24, & 25 at the Grand Palais in Paris.  The Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé is being offered by Christie’s in association with Pierre Bergé Associés (PBA) with a pre-sale estimate of $280-560 million.  The collection was amassed over fifty years by the longtime lovers, business partners, and kings of Parisian haute couture and stylish living.  The 700 lot sale includes property from Yves Saint Laurent’s rue de Babylone duplex and Bergé’s rue Bonaparte apartment, ranging from astonishing blue-chip modern paintings, old masters, and Qing dynasty sculptures to Art Deco pieces, Roman marbles, and African art.  

The notoriously private Bergé spoke with Simon Hewitt in the February issue of Art + Auction about the philosophy behind his collection:  

“We did not assemble this collection for money. It was a very important part of our life. There were three planks to the Bergé-Saint Laurent relationship: first, our life together for 50 years (I met him in 1958); second, our professional lives, building up the entity Yves Saint Laurent and everything this entailed; and the collection. For me, the three are totally interlinked….Yves Saint Laurent and I are French, we spent our careers in France, and our base for development was Paris. So this is where the sale had to be, even though there’s no art market in Paris.”

More Coverage:  

Vanity Fair:  The Things Yves Loved

Christie’s Magazine feature

Forbes: Inside YSL’s Art Collection – Matisse Masterpiece could fetch $390 million