Yves Saint Laurent art collection to be auctioned

By Elizabeth Pineau

PARIS (Reuters) - The art collection of late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, one of the finest in private hands, will be sold at auction with up to 300 million euros in proceeds to go to charity, organizers said on Friday.

The collection, gathered over decades by Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge, ranges from Chinese masterpieces to paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Degas as well as art deco treasures and ancient Roman and baroque sculptures.

"It is one of the most sumptuous private collections of our time, a French paragon of quality and taste," said auction house Christie's, which estimates the works will fetch between 200 million to 300 million euros ($293 million to $439 million).

The sale will be held in Paris on February 23 to February 25, 2009.

Saint Laurent, whose clothing designs revolutionized women's fashion, died at the age of 71 in June and bequeathed his share of the collection to the charitable foundation he set up with Berge, his business manager and long-time companion.

Berge said he decided to sell the entire collection and donate the money to a new foundation to help medical research and the fight against AIDS.

"If I'm proud of one thing in this collection, it's the demanding standards that Yves Saint Laurent and I always brought to the acquisition of objects," he told a news conference in Paris.

Highlights of the collection include Picasso's 1914 work "Musical instruments on a gueridon," estimated to be worth between 30 million to 40 million euros, several works by the French painter Henri Matisse as well as rare 18th century bronze sculptures from China.

"I would never have imagined that one day we would be able to organize a sale like this," Thomas Seydoux, director of Christie's modern and impressionist art department told Reuters.

"The origin, age, date, state of conservation, the pedigree of these works, everything is exceptional."

The collection had been housed in a Paris apartment, which Saint Laurent and Berge moved into in 1972.

Berge, 77 and head of a prominent Paris auction house, said he preferred the collection be sold rather than go to a museum.

"The day the last object has gone under the hammer will be the day 'The End' is written on this collection," he said. "These paintings will not leave me even when they have gone."

"I can live very well without a collection. Yves Saint Laurent and I began in life 50 years ago without this furniture and these paintings and believe me, we were very happy."

(Writing by James Mackenzie)