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Wednesday, 25th February 2009 (1600 views)

Works of art in gold formed part of a high-profile auction being sold at the Grand Palais de Paris this month.

Held between February 23rd and 25th 2009, the sale of the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint-Laurent collection was described as the "sale of the century" by art market information firm Artprice.

Owned by the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge, his former partner, the sale featured 691 lots, including items from the Far East, dating back to antiquity and works in gold and enamels from the 16th century.

Some of the most famous signatures in the modern art world were also in the collection, which was expected to generate millions of pounds worth of sales in the auction officiated by auction house Christie's.

Bidders paid €307 million (£272.7 million) over the first two days of the sale, making it the most valuable privately-owned art collection ever to be sold at an auction.

In other news, a gold ring once owned by Charles Darwin has been sold at auction by Nigel Ward & Company in Pontrilas for £26,000 to an anonymous collector from Northern Ireland.

The ring is believed to support the theory that Charles Dickens had an illegitimate love child and bears the inscription 'Alfred Tennyson to Charles Dickens 1854'.

 

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