YSL ULTIMATE COLLECTION AUCTION
This Roman marble torso of Mercury is part of the 700 works belonging to Yves St Laurent and Pierre Berge's private collection, that can be seen at Christie's in London. It will then be sold at an auction at The Grand Palais in Paris between February 25 and 27. This item is estimated between $200.000 and $270.000, but this event is expected to raise up to $500 million The proceeds will be donated to global Aids research and other humanitarian projects.
The collection dating from the 13th to the 20th Century, were assembled over 50 years by Saint Laurent and Berge.
Earlier this week Berge, explaining why he was selling up, told a French newspaper this weekend that the collection was "meaningless" to him after Saint Laurent's death. It is far from meaningless to the art market, however.
We all remember the fantastic (and sulfurous) ad campaign in 2002 for St Laurent M7 fragrance featuring French male model and former martial arts champion Samuel de Cubber naked. This ad was inspired by YSL posing naked in his own perfume ads in 1971 not so long after that he named one of his most popular fragrances 'Opium' ... there always had a sent of controversy with Yves St Laurent and I loved that!
Most magazines outside France refused to run the ad until a more 'appropriate' version featuring the same model from the chest up was released. personally I never understood the all drama about nudity. There are of course people I rather not see naked but when something is beautiful I have no objection your honor!
