Paris - The auction of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent's art collection achieved a record price for a piece of 20th-century furniture when an Art Deco Eileen Gray armchair fetched 21.9 million euros (27.9 million dollars).

The bid on the brown leather chair by an anonymous collector Tuesday night in Paris was also the second-highest price ever paid at action for a piece of furniture, Christie's auction house said.

The chair by the Irish designer, considered one of the most important designers of the 20th century, was made between 1917 and 1919 and features dragon heads sculpted onto its wooden arms.

Its sale price substantially overstepped Christie's pre-auction estimate of 2 million to 3 million euros.

Another Gray piece, a multiple-door cabinet, also brought nearly 4 million euros Tuesday night on the second day of the three-day auction.

The action had already broken the record for the biggest sale of a private collection on its first night, when it brought in 206 million euros, exceeding the previous record set in 1997 in New York of 163 million euros.

Christie's said its two-day total came to 297 million euros.

The final night of the sale is to feature sculpture, Asian art, Islamic art and archeological pieces, and its final sales total would easily outdo the 300-million-euro pre-auction estimate of the collection's value.

The first night of the auction was dedicated to modern art and saw a painting by Henri Matisse fetch a record for the artist while works by Piet Mondrian and Constantin Brancusi easily brought in more than their estimates.

The collection was amassed over 50 years by Saint Laurent, who died in June of a brain tumour, and his longtime partner Pierre Berge.

The sale scored a legal victory Monday when a French judge rejected a petition to block the sale of two Chinese bronze animal heads.

The Association for the Protection of Chinese Art in Europe had tried to prevent Christie's from selling the two bronzes of a rat and rabbit, charging they were looted from China by British and French troops 150 years ago from Beijing's Summer Palace.

The bronzes are to be auctioned Wednesday. Christie's estimated their value at 8 million to 10 million euros. (dpa)