PARIS (AP) – Two rare bronze sculptures that disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago – and demanded back by Beijing – sold for $36 million Wednesday on the final day of a dazzlingly successful auction of art works owned by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

The collection of Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Berge, brought a total of more than $484 million – and broke several world records – in a three-day “sale of the century,” said the organizer, Christie’s.

That was well over the $254 million-$381.5 million the 733-piece sale had been expected to fetch. Berge told reporters at the closing news conference he was “very, very happy with the result.”

“I considered that with the death of Yves Saint Laurent that this collection had reached its end, that it was finished,” Berge said. “I am sure that those who bought these works of art are going to welcome them … with the same passion that Yves and I had during so many years.”

The disputed bronze fountainheads – heads of a rat and a rabbit that disappeared from China’s Summer Imperial Palace in 1860 – were sold for $17.8 million each to an unidentified telephone bidder or bidders.

Christie’s executives declined to name the winning bidders, comparing the auctioneer’s duty to protect buyers’ privacy to a doctor’s duty to protect that of his patient.

Berge added only that “it was not me.”

China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage wrote to Christie’s last week urging it to stop the auction, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. An agency spokesman said Christie’s had replied, but declined to discuss specifics, the report said.

Berge insisted the auction should go ahead as planned, and on Monday a French judge refused a request to halt the sale of the artifacts.

From the start, the auction appeared to ignore the controversy – and the world financial crisis.

That was welcome news for a world art market worried that the global economic crisis is cutting into art investments, and for Christie’s, which wants the auction to boost flagging sales.

Berge said the results proved he had been right to ignore the advice of friends telling to hold onto the collection until the crisis abated.

“When we provide buyers with quality works of art, the buyers are there,” said Berge, who said he would use a large portion of the proceeds to support AIDS research.

In the auction’s second round Tuesday night, 19th century paintings and 20th century decorative artworks took in a total of $129 million, according to Christie’s.

The auction house said an armchair embellished with snakes and designed by Eileen Gray set a record for a piece of 20th century furniture, selling at $27.8 million. Snakes fascinated Saint Laurent. A vase with a serpent by Jean Dunand sold for $343,400 – nine times higher than the highest pre-auction estimate.

Earlier in the week, “Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose” (The Cowslips, Blue and Rose Fabric), a 1911 oil painting by Henri Matisse, fetched $40.8 million. That was a record auction price for a work by the French artist, Christie’s said.

Another threshold was passed for a painting by Ingres, “Portrait de la comtesse de La Rue” (Portrait of the Countess of La Rue), which sold for $2.66 million, a record for the French neoclassical painter, Christie’s said.

Other pieces sold Wednesday night included a 16th century, gilded Buddha statue, also from China, a collection of daggers from Turkey and India and a pair of Louis XV velvet couches.

Saint Laurent’s enormous collection, gathered over a half century, was put on public view in New York and London before coming to Paris. The designer died last year at age 71.