The Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé Sale

Paris – As many expected, and the art market hoped, the avalanche of publicity for the auction of the Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé art and furniture collection led to a record sale for a private collection-and that on only the first round of the three-day event at the Grand Palais. The prestigious evening sale last night, dedicated to 61 lots of Impressionist and modern art, took in a whopping €206.15 million, or approximately $266 million.

A new world record was set for Matisse, with his 1911 Cowslips, Pink and Blue Rug sold to an anonymous buyer, bidding through New York-based French art dealer Franck Giraud, for twice the high estimate at €35.9 million ($46.4 million). World records were also set for works by Brancusi, Mondrian, Ensor, Klee, Duchamp and Giorgio de Chirico, whose Surrealist painting Il Ritornante was pre-empted by the French state for the Pompidou Center at €11.04 million ($14.2 million).

The auction room, specially built in the glass-roofed nave of the Grand Palais, was packed with celebrities, art dealers, collectors and socialites, including billionaire businessman and contemporary art collector François Pinault; former French Culture Ministers Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Jean-Jacques Aillagon (currently head of Versailles); decorators Jacques Grange and François-Joseph Graf; New York dealer Larry Gagosian and high-profile Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

The only flop of the evening was a major one: Picasso’s 1914 Cubist Musical Instruments on a Pedestal Table, estimated at €25-€30 million ($31.7-$38 million), failed to find a bidder.  According to Le Monde this morning, asked afterward if he was disappointed by the Picasso’s failure, an elated Bergé replied “Not at all. I’ve had an inestimable sale, and on top of it I gained a Picasso!”

The sale continues today with gold, silver and other objets d’art at 3 pm and Art Deco furnishings at 6 pm. On Wednesday sculptures, objets d’art and cameos will be sold at 1 pm, and all that’s left at 7 pm-including a 1st/2nd-century AD marble torso of a Minotaur and the two splendid Chinese bronze heads, of a rat and a rabbit, whose sale was challenged by a European-based association for the protection of Chinese art. A French court rejected that challenge on Monday. (Bergé’s widely quoted response to the protest was that he would be happy to give the bronze heads to China if China would respect human rights and give freedom to Tibet.)

Bergé has announced that proceeds from the sale, conducted by Christie’s Paris in conjunction with his own auction house Pierre Bergé & Associés, will go to a new foundation for AIDS research.

For more pictures of works of art in the sale, click here.