Sale of the Century

On February 23rd, Christie's will auction what has been described as the 'sale of the century'. The collection of Yves Saint Laurent and his long time companion Pierre Berge will be sold in it's entirety and is expected to reach somewhere in the vicinity of 200 to 500 million euros. 

It is an extraordinary collection and makes for some great browsing on the Christies website. If you have some time this weekend, feast the soul, and take a look at these magnificent sculptures, paintings and objects that have so painstakingly been put together. I feel a little sad that YSL's life passion is on the block only four months after his death but according to Berge he wanted closure and felt that the collection was meaningless without him. 

I have ordered one of the catalogues  - I don't attend auctions and wave a paddle but I am a catalogue collector. I like to think that catalogues of important sales preserve moments in time, a little bit of history even; after all collections (whatever the monetary value) are about dreams and the journey taken to create them. Once the objects are sold and the collection is divided up each piece will move to a new home and tell another story, no doubt just as interesting, but not the same. For that reason I enjoy reading catalogues and learning how the collections came to be. I love to learn and try to understand the driving force that made certain objects so collectible for their owner. 

I guess the moral of this story is that life moves on and objects are transitory in our lives and are only on loan until the next collector comes along.  

Enjoy Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge's journey together - it is remarkable, xv