Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé - Christie's

european furniture
and works of art
The collection of European Decorative Arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries illustrates
the eclectic and discerning eye of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé who recognised
superb craftsmanship wherever they found it, from the Nuremberg clockmakers to
French and Italian cabinet-makers and Gobelins weavers. The chasing of an automaton
lion, the intricate clockwork of a timepiece, the cabinetmaking of a centre table, all
display the ingenious inventions of man’s hand.
The geographical origins of these works of art also indicate the collectors’ open-mindedness:
pieces emanate from the château de Châteauneuf sur Cher, the Palazzo Carrega-Cataldi
(in Genoa) or the Schloss Karlsruhe. But these prestigious antecedents were not an
essential issue for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. What did matter to them was
originality and perfection of design. These criteria are illustrated by the eye-catching
Louis XIV tapestry Les Anciennes Indes which hung in the dining room. It is easy to
understand why Louis XIV was so dazzled by the cartoons for this set of tapestries,
realised by the painters A. Eckhout and F. Post from sketches made during their trip to
Brazil between 1637 and 1644. In the Kunstkammer brought together by Pierre Bergé and
Yves Saint Laurent, a clock is especially eye-catching. Realised by Michael Kraz, an early
17th-century clockmaker from Augsburg, it shows a rampant lion automaton, illustrating
the meeting of the technical and the aesthetic aspects of a work of art.
The objets d’art assembled by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, such as a 15thcentury
Flemish tapestry, a 17th-century French mirror, 18th-century Italian chairs or a
19th-century English stool do not at first glance have anything in common; consider
the wide profusion of shapes and materials; patinated walnut, pewter-inlaid ebony,
carved rock crystal, finely chased ormolu, carved porphyry; but on second glance, these
works of art all have a soul, and all reveal the shrewd eye of their collectors.
158
– Simon de Monicault
Furniture Department, Paris