PARIS — Two rare bronze sculptures that disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago — and which Beijing wants back — sold for $36 million Wednesday at an auction of artworks 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, said the organizer, Christie’s. That was well over what the 733-piece sale had been expected to fetch.
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.
China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage had urged Christie’s to stop the auction. On Monday, a French judge refused a request to halt the sale.
Berge said he would use a large portion of the proceeds to support AIDS research.
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 $344,600 — nine times the highest pre-auction estimate.
Another threshold was passed for a painting by Ingres, “Portrait de la com tesse 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.
