Yves Saint Laurent signed a civil union days before he died, and his collection sale included two bronze heads looted from Beijing in 1860

Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé founded his couture house and were partners for 50 years. Days before Saint Laurent died in Paris on 1 June 2008, aged 71, the two men signed a PACS, a French civil partnership, at his home. Bergé said they had made parallel wills: each was the other's heir, and each one's undivided share went to their foundation. Saint Laurent's ashes went to the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, which the couple bought in 1980. On 23 to 25 February 2009 Christie's sold their collection at the Grand Palais for €373.5 million. A Matisse made €32.1 million. The sale included the bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit from the zodiac fountain of the Old Summer Palace, taken in 1860. A French judge refused a Chinese group's request to stop the sale. A phone bidder won both heads for €31.4 million. On 2 March 2009 the buyer, Cai Mingchao, said in Beijing that the money would not be paid. Bergé offered to return the heads if China granted human rights and freedom for Tibet. In 2013 the Pinault family, owners of Christie's, bought the heads from Bergé and gave them to the National Museum of China. Bergé married Madison Cox in March 2017 and died on 8 September 2017. In November 2018 a Paris appeal court rejected claims by two people calling themselves heirs of the painter Jacques Majorelle against the foundation, finding they were not his descendants.