A thing of beauty

The best works of art still command fancy pricesIN CHRISTIES Paris auction room on the evening of February 23rd it was as though the financial crisis had never happened. A sale of works of art collected by the late designer Yves Saint Laurent brought in $264m, well ahead of the estimate of $232m (though a Chinese buyer refused to pay for some bronzes as a nationalist protest). Records were set for works by Piet Mondrian and Marcel Duchamp, although a Picasso failed to meet its reserve price and was withdrawn.At Sothebys, meanwhile, sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art in February raised $100m, including a record GBP13.3m ($20m) for a Degas sculpture. The same piece had been bought for $9.1m in 2004.