PARIS - Two rare bronze sculptures that disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago -- and which Beijing wants back -- have been sold for US$36 million at an auction of art works owned by the late designer Yves Saint Laurent.
The collection of Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge brought a total of more than $484 million -- and broke several world records -- over the three-day auction, the organizer, Christie's said Wednesday.
Berge told reporters at the closing news conference he was "very, very happy with the result."
The disputed bronze fountainheads -- heads of a rat and a rabbit that disappeared from China's Summer Imperial Palace in 1860 -- were sold to an unidentified telephone bidder or bidders.
Christie's officials declined to name the winning bidders, comparing the auctioneer's duty to protect buyers' privacy to a doctor's duty to protect that of his patient.
Berge added only that "it was not me."
China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage wrote to Christie's last week urging it to stop the auction, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. An agency spokesman said Christie's had replied, but declined to discuss specifics, the report said.
Saint Laurent's partner, Pierre Berge, insisted the auction should go ahead as planned, and on Monday a French judge refused a request to halt the sale of the artifacts.
From the start, the auction appeared to ignore the controversy -- and the world financial crisis.
That was welcome news for a world art market worried that the global economic crisis is cutting into art investments, and for Christie's, which wants the auction to boost flagging sales.
Berge said the results proved he had been right to ignore the advice of friends telling to hold onto the collection until the crisis abated. He said he would use a large portion of the proceeds to support AIDS research.
In the auction's second round Tuesday night, 19th-century paintings and 20th-century decorative artworks took in a total of $128.9 million, according to Christie's.
The auction house said an armchair embellished with snakes and designed by Eileen Gray set a record for a piece of 20th-century furniture, selling at $27.95 million.
Snakes fascinated Saint Laurent. A vase with a serpent by Jean Dunand was sold for €270,000 ($344,600) -- nine times higher than the highest pre-auction estimate.
Another threshold was passed for a painting by Ingres, "Portrait de la comtesse de La Rue" (Portrait of the Countess of La Rue), which sold for $2.66 million, a record for the French neoclassical painter, Christie's said.
Saint Laurent's enormous collection, gathered over half a century, was put on public view in New York and London before coming to Paris. The designer died last year at age 71.
