Strong Asia presence at Saint Laurent auction

As the four-day sale wound up, the auction house said that though only five percent of the bidders were from Asia, they accounted for 32 percent of the total raised at the auction -- which fetched 8.99 million euros (US$13.3 million).

Countries concerned were China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, said Christie's, which refused to identify buyers.

Buyers from those countries bought nine of the most expensive items, from a pair of rare 19th century ball armchairs that fetched 241,000 euros to a 91,000-euro chandelier, and including a Fernand Leger gouache, at 181,000 euros (US$269,000).

"It seems Saint Laurent is a very strong presence in Asia," said an official who asked not to be named.

The four-day auction, held inside a plush theatre off the Champs Elysees boulevard, involved some 30 auctioneers and more than 1,200 registered bidders.

Most of the 1,180 objects up for grabs were from the pair's country hideaway on the Normandy coast, including even its pots and pans. But the YSL mystique sent prices through the ceiling, with a total 98 percent of lots finding buyers.

The first sale of treasures belonging to Saint Laurent and his companion, Pierre Berge, raised more than 370 million euros in February in one of the biggest auctions Paris has seen.

Christie's had estimated the second sale would rake in between 3 and 4 million euros, with all the proceeds going to an AIDS research charity.

The November 17-20 auction featured almost 1,200 works that used to decorate various properties owned by the couple, including Chateau Gabriel, a 19th-century Normandy country house.

Among the objects that saw heavy bidding were a pair of armchairs, made at the start of the 19th century, which were valued at between 6,000-8,000 euros and eventually sold for 241,000 euros.

Another unexpected hit was an umbrella holder, which used to stand at the entrance to Saint Laurent and Berge's Paris apartment. It was valued at between 300 and 500 euros, but sold for 109,000 euros.

Saint Laurent and Berge built up one of the world's biggest and most important private art collections over some five decades but Berge decided to sell it all after Saint Laurent died last year.

It was nonetheless a far smaller sale than the February auction of the pair's valuable 700-item art collection, a record-smashing affair dubbed the sale of the century which netted 342 million euros (US$491 million).

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